Senators reject Bush plea for time on Iraq

The Senate foreign affairs committee are to push ahead with a resolution that states that Bush's proposed troop increase in Iraq is "not in the national interest", a rare repudiation of a President at a time of war, especially since Bush's plea when he made his State of the Union Address that Congress should "give it a chance to work".

The reaction of the Chamber illustrated how isolated Bush has become with Republicans giving him a standing ovation and Democrats, led by Pelosi, pointedly refusing to applaud.

The Senate foreign relations committee voted 12 to 9 in favour of adopting the anti-war resolution, which is scheduled to go before the whole Senate next week. At that time, at least nine Republican senators intend to back the resolution, though they will negotiate with Democrats over the next few days to change the language. The Democrats are likely to agree in an effort to win as many votes as possible.

Chuck Hagel, the only Republican to vote with the Democrats on the committee yesterday, said: "We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."

The Democratic committee chairman, Joe Biden, said the resolution was designed "to save the president from making a significant mistake".

Mr Bush still enjoys the support of two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain and the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Senator Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the foreign affairs committee, opposed the resolution. "This vote will force nothing on the president, but it will confirm to our friends and allies that we are divided and in disarray," he said. But he added: "I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed."

Of course, Bush will simply ignore the new resolution and plough on regardless, but the very fact that some Republicans will vote to censure the President in this way shows just how isolated Bush is becoming.

For the past three years Bush has been able to portray anyone who expressed concern against his policies as a "traitor" who wanted "Iraq to fail" and the Republican Party lined up totally behind that fractured logic. The fact that some Republicans are prepared to vote against Bush's policy and run the risk of similar accusations being thrown at them says a lot about how far from the mainstream Bush now stands on this issue, when even former supporters rush to distance themselves from his policies.

Meanwhile, in Britain, the government came under attack for it's Iraq policy in a rare Commons debate on the issue, with Sir Menzies Campbell - the leader of the Liberal Democrats - calling for British troops to begin withdrawing.

Sir Menzies said Britain had already handed three out of four districts under British control back to Iraqi forces and could put the city of Basra under Iraqi command by July. He told MPs: "No one can accuse the UK of cutting and running after four years in which we have tried to the best of our ability to fulfil the objectives of the United Nations resolutions.

"For four years, we have endured the stresses and strains of occupation, stresses and strains more directly borne by our armed forces... I don't think it is any longer reasonable or legitimate to ask our armed forces to bear this burden and that is why the process of withdrawal should begin on 1 May and end in October. It is time to go."

Both the Conservatives and Labour attacked Sir Menzies for suggesting what they see as an "arbitrary" date, however there were very few applauding the government's position, with even former Labour ministers attacking the position Blair has placed them in.

Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, said British forces should leave Iraq. He said: "I cannot believe that anyone in the House can expect anything but protracted chaos, misery, death and injury for the people of Iraq whenever the occupation forces withdraw.

"There will be no fairy tale ending to the occupation."

Peter Kilfolye, the former defence minister, attacked the Government for waging war on "a false prospectus". He said: "I fear that nobody ever will be held to account."

Another former Labour cabinet minister, Gavin Strang, added: "At last there is a consensus that the situation in Iraq is horrendous. Throughout last year, we were told the coalition was winning, it was just that we were winning more slowly than expected. Earlier this month, we had acknowledgement from President Bush that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable and that existing policies had failed."

Sir Malcom Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign and defence secretary, said: "The reality is that war was a terrible mistake. He should have reflected on the remark of Bismarck that pre-emptive wars are rather like committing suicide because of a fear of death."

Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP for Manchester Gorton, said: "Leaders of the West hailed the democracy involved in the election of the Iraqi government. What has resulted from that election is a vengeful sectarian gang who are hounding their religious opponents."

I personally can no see easy way out of this war, nor can I see the day when US and British troops restore order to Iraq's streets. It seems to me to have simply gone too far for that. British and American troops are simply targets.

The ONLY solution that had any chance of success - and that was, admittedly, a small one - was the Iraq Study Group's proposal that Bush should negotiate with Iraq's neighbours, Syria and Iran.

Violent sectarian conflicts can only ever be solved by patient negotiation. Military solutions cannot ever work. The British situation in Ireland amply demonstrates that point. In Ireland, the Catholics were getting a shitty deal, hence the violence. The Protestants controlled the police and ensured their domination. It naturally followed that the Protestants were unwilling to share power with a group of people over which they had always exercised dominance.

A similar situation exists in Iraq. The Shia have suddenly gained power over the Sunnis, a group of people who have long dominated them. The Sunnis have taken to armed unrest in order to attempt to reverse this situation.

Only patient negotiation and a sharing of power by both sides will have any chance of reducing the violence.

Bush introduced democracy into a country who ethnic makeup he barely understood, and did so in a way which guaranteed the violence that has ensued. When he used to speak of Baathist remnants he was simply revealing how little he understood of the Pandora's box that he had opened.

That he proposes closing the box by installing more troops is a further indication of how little he understands the situation in which he now finds himself.

I understand his wish not to leave Iraq in chaos. It would be criminal were the US and Britain to waltz away leaving Iraq in the middle of a civil war.

However, the way to avoid that outcome is not to send more troops. It is to start negotiation with the very groups that he has been fighting against. John Major and Tony Blair did not negotiate with the IRA because they forgot the terrible things that they had done, they negotiated because - after years of mindless conflict - they realised that negotiation was the only way to stop the madness.

The Sunnis have been disenfranchised, just as the Shias were for years treated like shit. There can be no military solution to that conundrum, nor does it do anyone any good to arm and support one side in the dispute.

It's a situation that calls for old fashioned diplomacy.

It's not a matter of "cut and run" as Bush likes to portray it, for no-one is suggesting that running would be a noble exercise. However, even Bush has admitted that his present policy is not working. His new proposal is simply more of the same.

If Bush wants to leave Iraq in a stable state - and I genuinely believe that he does - then he has to realise that he is approaching this problem from the wrong angle.

Blair, with all his experience in Northern Ireland, should be proposing negotiation. It says a lot about the "special relationship" that Blair has not even dared to bring the subject up.

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