Agence France-Presse,
WASHINGTON (AFP): The US Congress was Thursday set to launch a fresh attempt to wrest control of the Iraq war from President George W. Bush, as a critical moment neared in the political battle over US strategy.
The House of Representatives was due to debate and likely vote on a bill demanding the withdrawal of most combat troops from Iraq by April 1 next year, while the Senate plowed through its own emotional debate over the war.
The Bush administration was meanwhile said to be ready to deliver a key interim report on its troop surge strategy to Congress, possibly as early as Thursday, as it struggled to contain a Republican revolt on Iraq.
Tense political combat over the war took a new twist Wednesday, as another Republican Senator bowed to the logic of souring public opinion and declared she would back a Democratic bid to enforce troops withdrawals by next year.
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine said America had arrived at a “crossroads of hope and reality” on the war, which has killed 3,601 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis, and it was time to embrace “reality.”
The White House, under withering political fire, admitted unhappiness over the war had become the 'central fact' of US politics, but brushed off demands to reverse Bush's surge of 30,000 extra troops into Iraq.
“There's a lot of skepticism among Republicans. As I told you, they're getting an earful from constituents,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
National Security adviser Stephen Hadley meanwhile held meetings with worried Republicans on Capitol Hill.
ABC News said the administration would tell Congress the Iraqi government merited “satisfactory” grades on eight of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress.
That conflicted with reports earlier in the week that Iraq would fail every single test in the keenly awaited report, which will set the table for a more definitive judgement on the surge strategy awaited in September.
The House was expected to debate all day, before voting on a measure which would require most combat troops to be out of Iraq by April 1, 2008.
The redeployment would begin within 120 days and the President would be forced to report to Congress on why soldiers should stay in Iraq for limited purposes such as fighting terrorism or training Iraqi forces.
A similar bill is also being debated in the Senate, but both approaches mirror earlier Democratic attempts to end the war which Bush vetoed.
Although Republican discontent is growing over Iraq, it is not clear if the Democrats have drawn enough ex-Bush allies to jump over the 60-vote hurdle in the 100-seat Senate needed to defeat delaying tactics by Republican leaders.
Bush's remaining supporters in the Senate succeeded in defeating a Democratic bid to grant US troops the same amount of time to recuperate back at base as they spend in combat in Iraq.
The measure would have effectively limited the number of soldiers available for deployment to Iraq and therefore limited troop numbers.
“Republicans today proved they are more committed to protecting the president rather than protecting our troops,” said an angry Senate Majority leader Harry Reid.
In one rare moment of unity on Iraq on Wednesday, the Senate voted unanimously to pass a measure censuring Iran for what it said was complicity in the killings of US soldiers.
“Today's unanimous vote sends a strong, clear message from the entire Senate to the Iranians that we know what they are doing in Iraq, and they must stop,” said Senator Joseph Lieberman, who framed the legislation.
The amendment laid out what it said was evidence about proxy attacks by Iranian forces on US soldiers in Iraq and called for a regular US government report to Congress on Tehran's role in the war-torn nation.
A top US intelligence official meanwhile gave a bleak appraisal of Iraq's chances of stemming political and religious strife.
Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence, told a congressional committee “even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation.”
