Compromise over Iraq elusive

WASHINGTON — The leader of a bipartisan effort to rebuke President Bush's Iraq strategy said Thursday he would not strike a compromise with a harsher Democratic resolution the Senate will debate next week.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he won't negotiate with Democrats to develop a single proposal on Iraq. His comments — along with the emergence of other resolutions the Senate might consider — underscored how a Congress largely against Bush's proposal to send more troops to Iraq remained divided over what to do about it.

Warner's decision bolsters chances that his resolution will be the one to win final Senate approval. Democrats are expected to vote for his proposal if their measure fails, and several Republicans said they prefer Warner's approach because it is less divisive.

His decision to avoid bargaining also decreases the odds that a single resolution would emerge that would garner a strong, bipartisan vote reproaching Bush's plan, which the White House hopes to avoid.

Warner's resolution would put the Senate on record as opposing Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. It leaves open the possibility that a small number of forces could be sent to the western Anbar Province, where al-Qaida members are believed to be operating.

The nonbinding measure is less critical than one approved Wednesday in a 12-9 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That resolution — introduced by Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. — states flatly that sending more troops into Iraq is "not in the national interest."

Any agreement on the two resolutions "should occur as a consequence of the will of the Senate, working in 'open' session," Warner wrote in a letter to Biden and other co-sponsors of the Democratic-driven resolution.

A full Senate vote could come as early as the week of Feb. 5, with debate beginning next week. The House is expected to follow with a vote on a similar measure.

Amid the maneuvering, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., led House members on a fact-finding trip to Iraq. And other Democrats attacked Vice President Dick Cheney for comments in a CNN interview Wednesday defending administration policy in Iraq.

"To have Vice President Cheney suggest that we have had a series of enormous successes in Iraq is delusional," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.