US DEMOCRATS TO FORCE DEBATE OVER IRAQ WAR

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2007 (AFP) – Anti-war Democrats in the US Senate are vowing to force Republicans to stage an all-night vigil on Tuesday to defend President George W. Bush’s policy on Iraq. Democratic majority leader Harry Reid turned up the heat on Republicans on Monday after they blocked a vote on a bill that would force Bush to get most combat troops out of Iraq by early next year. “Blocking an up-or-down vote … shows Republicans are more interested in protecting the president than our troops,” Reid said. “We’re going to work today. We’re going to work tomorrow. We’re going to work tomorrow night.”

The marathon all-night debate starting Tuesday will attempt to force Republicans to allow a simple majority vote on a bill requiring a withdrawal of combat troops to start within 120 days and to be completed by April 30 next year. Bill sponsor Senator Carl Levin said that the legislation “would tell the Iraqis that we are going to begin to take a step to force them to take responsibility for their own nation.” “It’s long overdue; the Iraqis have been fiddling while their Baghdad capital has been burning. And there is no solution in Iraq other than a political solution,” Levin said on the PBS television network. “Why wait for more American lives to be lost?” he said.

The political showdown comes amid more bloodshed in Iraq and as the White House struggles to retain support among Bush’s nervous Republican allies for his “surge” strategy that has deployed nearly 30,000 extra troops to Iraq.

Despite several defections by high-profile Republicans in recent weeks, Democrats are still thought to be short of the 60-vote super-majority needed to overcome Republican filibuster tactics to stall a vote on the mandatory troop-withdrawal legislation.

Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ move as a stunt.

“I think it is theater and bad theater at that,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican minority.

As Congress prepared for the round-the-clock debate, mass funerals were under way on Tuesday in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk a day after a truck and two car bombs slaughtered 77 people and wounded scores more. Kirkuk residents believed the attack was designed to trigger sectarian violence.

And in the restive Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, gunmen dressed in Iraqi military uniforms murdered 29 villagers overnight, an Iraqi military spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

In Washington, there were new signs of an intense effort by the Bush administration to repair fraying Republican unity over the war. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to Ghana this week to stay in Washington to devote her attention to the crisis. To read further, please go to: PoliticalGateway