Iraq war resolution on Senate's plate today

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist declared Tuesday that "surrendering is not a solution" in Iraq as Democrats embraced a proposal to start troop withdrawals this year, setting up an election-year showdown in the GOP-controlled Senate.

"We cannot retreat. We cannot surrender. We cannot go wobbly. The price is far too high," said Frist, R-Tenn., suggesting that Democrats want to do just that.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, disputed the GOP characterization of the Democrats' position and said: "We have to serve notice on the Iraqis that their future has to be in their own hands."

Fierce debate on Iraq spilled over into a second week on Capitol Hill as Democrats prepared to introduce a nonbinding resolution on Iraq that calls for redeployments to begin this year but does not set a firm deadline to have all forces out of the war zone.

In what Republicans and Democrats alike are billing as perhaps the Senate's largest debate on Iraq since the war began in spring 2003, the Senate was expected to take up and vote on the resolution today.

The Senate also is to consider and vote on a separate proposal by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would require the administration to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007. It is expected to fail overwhelmingly.

The Iraq debate comes a week after the GOP-controlled Senate and House soundly rejected timetables for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq.