AFP
Monday, February 5, 2007

US lawmakers rallied last-minute support ahead of a Senate debate on a resolution repudiating President George W. Bush's plan to send thousands more US troops to Iraq.

The bill faces an uncertain fate, because Senate Republicans have vowed to use parliamentary procedures to block the legislation from coming up for a vote despite growing public opposition to the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraqi and US forces are preparing to launch a massive crackdown in Baghdad to end the sectarian carnage pushing Iraq toward civil war as at least another 47 people died in a surge of violence.

Tanks and other armoured vehicles along with National Guard police were seen at various locations on the road to Sadr City and in districts such as Karrada. Thirteen bridges cross the Tigris river in Baghdad, but several have been sealed off to traffic.

The US military declined to be specific.

The non-binding resolution on the new war strategy is a compromise resolution drafted last week by senior Senate Republican John Warner and Democrat Carl Levin.

It urges the president to consider alternatives to sending more US troops into Baghdad to halt the sectarian fighting, while also opposing any funding cutoff.

The debate begins as Bush presented Congress Monday with his budget for the coming fiscal year, including a request for 235 billion dollars for the current year and 2008 largely to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even if the Democrats, who wrested control of the Congress from the Republicans in November elections, succeed in holding a censure vote, it is far from certain that the measure will pass, with Bush's supporters vowing to hold the line against any reprimand against US Iraq policy,

"A non-binding resolution is a political exercise that does nothing but harm to the war effort, in my opinion," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Bush ally, told Fox News Sunday.

Meanwhile, some liberal Democrats are also vowing to vote against the non-binding measure, accusing it of lacking teeth.

Those Democrats, including US Senator Chris Dodd, urged the adoption of a tougher censure motion.

"I am disappointed that we can't find a way to do more than send a meaningless message to the White House -- a White House, I would add, that has said it will ignore anything that we have to say about the war in Iraq," Dodd said at a gathering of Democratic party elders Friday.

"The American people sent us a message this past November. The voters were clear," said Dodd. "They want a change in the policy in Iraq."

Bush's Republicans have been lobbying several disaffected colleagues not to defect to the opposition on the vote and instead give the president's plan unveiled on January 10 time to work.

"This is our last best chance," Graham said.

Bush's plan is a high stakes effort to quell the violence plaguing Iraq, especially the capital Baghdad, where about 17,500 of the 21,500 new US troops will be deployed.

One brigade of nearly 3,200 US troops has already arrived and is being deployed around the city.

But the president's plan met with skepticism even among some of his fellow Republicans -- especially after a new intelligence report painted a grim picture of the conflict.

Supporters of the censure measure said it simply made no sense to continue to send more US soldiers into harm's way.

"We cannot continue to feed our troops into the middle of a civil war," Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, one of the most vocal opponents of the plan and a potential presidential candidate, told ABC on Sunday.

"Very simply put, we disagree with escalating our military involvement in Iraq," he said of the resolution's message.

Some senators have sought to give the bill some teeth by adding amendments -- some of which would cap the number of US troops deployed in Iraq or set a timetable for their withdrawal.

US Senator Hillary Clinton, a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential elections, has said she backs a binding resolution that would place an immediate cap on the number of US troops in Iraq, and set out a phased redeployment.

US Democratic Party Senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama introduced a plan to begin a phased redeployment to pressure the Iraqis to reach a political settlement and reduce the violence.

The plan by Obama, a leading contender for his party's presidential nomination in 2008, calls for the pullout of US troops to begin no later than May 1, 2007 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Another bill penned by Republican Senator and likely White House contender John McCain, Graham, and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman calls for "full support" for the troop buildup and guaranteed continued funding for the war effort.

But it also insists that the Iraqi government meet performance benchmarks if the United States is to continue its engagement long term.