Push for speedier handover in Iraq

WASHINGTON – Showing mounting discontent among Republicans over the Iraq war, the US Senate has resolved that Iraqis should start taking the lead in their own security next year to allow a phased withdrawal of US troops.

But the Republican-led Senate rejected Democrats’ demand for Republican President George W. Bush to submit a plan and an estimated timetable to withdraw US forces, a step Bush has vehemently opposed.The Senate’s 79 to 19 vote came days after Bush, facing waning support for the war and the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, launched an aggressive counteroffensive against Democratic critics who say he misled the country by hyping prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion.The Senate demand, and with it the stirrings of Republican revolt, was another blow to Bush, who is reeling over a string of setbacks including his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, controversy over Supreme Court nominees and high petrol prices.The Senate resolution said 2006 “should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.”Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the resolution a rejection of Bush’s Iraq policy.”Today you saw a vote of no confidence in the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq.Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that staying the course is not the way to go.”The Republican resolution, sponsored by Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia, largely mirrored a Democratic resolution, except for Democrats’ key requirement for a withdrawal plan.Travelling with the president in Kyoto, Japan, Bush’s presidential counsellor, Dan Bartlett, called adoption of the Republican-backed resolution “a positive signal.””This was a strong repudiation of Democratic efforts to pass legislation calling for immediate, premature withdrawal from Iraq before the mission was complete,” Bartlett said.Senators defeated the Democrats’ resolution 58-40 before backing the other.Texas Republican John Cornyn said the Senate “chose not the cut-and- run option but the stay-and-fight option – and to win – and then to bring our troops home as soon as possible.”Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was pressed by reporters on whether the vote signalled a growing impatience with the Iraq war similar to that sparked more than three decades ago by the US war in Vietnam.”Oh, I wouldn’t go down that road myself,” Rumsfeld, who has rejected any direct comparison between the two wars, told a Pentagon news conference.Bush has argued that setting a timetable for pulling out the nearly 160 000 US troops in Iraq would send a green light to insurgents.- Nampa-ReutersBush to submit a plan and an estimated timetable to withdraw US forces, a step Bush has vehemently opposed.The Senate’s 79 to 19 vote came days after Bush, facing waning support for the war and the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, launched an aggressive counteroffensive against Democratic critics who say he misled the country by hyping prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion.The Senate demand, and with it the stirrings of Republican revolt, was another blow to Bush, who is reeling over a string of setbacks including his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, controversy over Supreme Court nominees and high petrol prices.The Senate resolution said 2006 “should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.”Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the resolution a rejection of Bush’s Iraq policy.”Today you saw a vote of no confidence in the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq.Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that staying the course is not the way to go.”The Republican resolution, sponsored by Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia, largely mirrored a Democratic resolution, except for Democrats’ key requirement for a withdrawal plan.Travelling with the president in Kyoto, Japan, Bush’s presidential counsellor, Dan Bartlett, called adoption of the Republican-backed resolution “a positive signal.””This was a strong repudiation of Democratic efforts to pass legislation calling for immediate, premature withdrawal from Iraq before the mission was complete,” Bartlett said.Senators defeated the Democrats’ resolution 58-40 before backing the other.Texas Republican John Cornyn said the Senate “chose not the cut-and- run option but the stay-and-fight option – and to win – and then to bring our troops home as soon as possible.”Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was pressed by reporters on whether the vote signalled a growing impatience with the Iraq war similar to that sparked more than three decades ago by the US war in Vietnam.”Oh, I wouldn’t go down that road myself,” Rumsfeld, who has rejected any direct comparison between the two wars, told a Pentagon news conference.Bush has argued that setting a timetable for pulling out the nearly 160 000 US troops in Iraq would send a green light to insurgents.- Nampa-Reuters