Senate Democrats want to limit Iraq mission

WASHINGTON — Thwarted in their attempt to formally rebuke President Bush, Senate Democrats on Sunday shifted their focus to narrowing the U.S. military mission in Iraq to fighting terrorism, training Iraqi forces and protecting American assets, rather than cracking down on sectarian fighting in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, an influential Republican urged the president to reach out to Democratic leaders in Congress and seek bipartisan legislation on Iraq.

"My guess is that the president might make headway, and he would be well served by having a bipartisan policy which does pass ... the House and the Senate. It has, really, a stamp of the American people at a time in which they see the urgency of Iraq," Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

A day after seven GOP senators joined Democrats in unsuccessfully attempting to condemn Bush's current Iraq policy, the White House offered no sign of compromise.

Instead, it urged lawmakers to give the Bush policy more time to succeed. "The war is tough, but the solution is not to get out," press secretary Tony Snow said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"What I would say to members of Congress is calm down and take a look at what's going on, and ask yourself a simple question: If you support the troops, would you deny them the reinforcements they think are necessary to complete the mission?"

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., took his own hard line, calling Iraq "the worst foreign-policy mistake in the history of the country," even worse than Vietnam. "We find ourselves in a very deep hole," Reid said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Democrats revised their aims after failing Saturday to gather enough votes in the Senate to permit debate on a symbolic resolution criticizing Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq for a crackdown on growing sectarian violence. The House passed such a resolution Friday.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., rejected calls from some within his party to push next for legislation cutting off funding for troops in Iraq.

Instead, he and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., discussed substantially narrowing U.S. troops' mission in Iraq by changing Congress' war authorization of 2002.

"That was a wide-open authorization, which allowed [Bush] to do just about anything," Levin said on "Fox News Sunday." "We, I think, will be looking at a modification of that authorization in order to limit the mission of American troops to a support mission, instead of a combat mission."

Levin said he believed such a bill would be a constitutional way to effect change in Iraq without trampling on the president's war powers and was more politically palatable than cutting off war funding.

"I don't think there's support to cut off funds," Levin said. "I think that sends the wrong message to our troops. We're going to support our troops, and one way to support them is to find a way out of Iraq earlier rather than later."

Pressed on what sort of duties U.S. troops should be limited to in Iraq, Levin suggested going after al-Qaida fighters, training Iraqi forces to take over and protecting U.S. diplomats and other assets.

Biden said on "Face the Nation" that he already was drafting legislation along the lines Levin suggested. Biden said he hoped the bill could be married with "some hard-headed diplomacy to get a political solution" between warring factions in Iraq.