Congressman Peter Welch says he’s encouraged that more members of the U.S. House appear to be coming around to his view that it’s time to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
But Welch was on the losing side in votes on two amendments on Thursday that would have curtailed the war effort.
One of the amendments to a defense spending bill called for the secretary of defense to present a plan within 60 days for withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan except for those engaged in counter-terrorism activities.
The other would have required a transition of military operations to Afghan authorities and a plan for negotiations leading to political reconciliation in Afghanistan. The amendments failed by narrower margins than similar ones in the past.