US Congress rebuffs bid to recall troops from Iraq

On the day the US military death toll in Iraq reached 2,500, Senate Republicans moved to renounce calls for a quick withdrawal from the conflict by forcing a vote on an amendment from Massachusetts Democrat

John Kerry to pull out of Iraq by year's end.

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The amendment was rejected by an overwhelming 93-6. While six Democrats supported it, most are pushing for a phased withdrawal over a longer timeframe they say would give Iraqis more time to ready their own security forces and reduce the chance of a full-scale civil war.

Kerry, who lost to President Bush in the 2004 election, said he resented the "fictitious" vote on the amendment he said was still being crafted and which he still intended to offer next week.

But Texas Republican John Cornyn called the vote "a good message that the United States Senate overwhelmingly opposes a cut-and-run strategy in Iraq."

A group of Senate Democrats also was working on an amendment to the defense policy bill for a troop withdrawal starting this year, but without a deadline for completion.

Bush has seen his popularity plummet largely because of the war, and Republicans are hoping to avoid being hurt by the conflict in November elections that will determine control of both chambers of Congress.

The House of Representatives held a sometimes impassioned debate on a Republican resolution that wrapped the Iraq war into the overall war on terrorism, and rejected setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces.

Buoyed by the killing last week of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al Qaeda in Iraq, and the formation of a new Iraqi unity government, Republicans portrayed Iraq as the key battleground against terrorists in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

In remarks that focused mostly on September 11, House Speaker

Dennis Hastert of Illinois said the alternative to winning in Iraq "would be to cut and run and wait for them to regroup and bring terror back to our sores."

The House was scheduled to vote on the resolution on Friday. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said she would vote against it, but said her caucus was not being pressured to vote either way.

Democrats said the resolution simply endorsed Bush's failed policies in Iraq. They said the Iraq invasion diverted resources from the fight against al Qaeda and brought chaos to Iraq that fueled terrorism there.

The Bush administration's central justification for the war was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found.

"Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until this president goes before the world and says 'bring it on,"' said Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has emerged as a leading advocate for withdrawing US forces, said: "Only the Iraqis can solve the problem in Iraq. They're fighting with each other and our troops are caught in between, and I say it's time to redeploy."

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, second-ranked in House Democratic leadership, charged that with "one of the most important issues before us, we have been presented with politics as usual -- an effort to divide when an effort to unite was in our country's and our armed forces' best interest."