Democratic leaders in the US Congress last night proposed withdrawing all American combat troops from Iraq by mid-2008, saying President George W. Bush's war strategy had failed and that the United States must instead focus on a brewing storm in Afghanistan.
The proposal put Democrats, who took control of Congress in January, on a collision course with Mr Bush, who does not want lawmakers meddling in how he wages a 4-year-old war that has seen escalating violence in Iraq and waning support at home.
"Our troops are out by no later than August of 2008" under the legislation, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. That deadline is just three months before presidential elections.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled a proposal to begin withdrawing soldiers from Iraq within four months and it sets a goal of pulling all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.
Reid moved to start a debate on that measure next week but was thwarted, at least for now, by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, who said more time was needed to look at the Democrats' ideas.
"The president's strategy in Iraq is not working and Congress must decide whether to follow his failed policies or whether to change course," Reid told reporters.
The White House promptly warned that Bush would veto such legislation if it reached his desk. White House counselor Dan Bartlett, speaking to reporters traveling with Bush on his way to Brazil, called the House Democrats' plan an "artificial precipitous withdrawal from Iraq."