Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today said he likely would support legislation barring a US attack on Iran unless Congress explicitly gave President George W. Bush the green light to do so.
The Nevada Democrat was responding to reporters' questions about an amendment to an upcoming war-funding bill, which could come to the Senate floor later this month.
The amendment is being drafted by Senator James Webb, the Virginia Democrat who won his seat in November largely on a vow to work to end the war in Iraq.
"I would be very, very confident, I have not read this (amendment), but I'm confident, in real generality ... that I can support him," Mr Reid told reporters.
Mr Webb's amendment would prohibit Bush from spending any money on a "unilateral military action in Iran without the express consent of the Congress," the Virginia senator told reporters yesterday. He said there would be some exceptions, but did not detail them.
Mr Webb said he used as a "starting point" legislation introduced in the US House of Representatives in January by Republican Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina making it clear that the Iraq war resolution passed by Congress in 2002 does not authorize the use of force in Iran.
US-Iran relations are tense, in part because of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but also following US allegations that Iran has been encouraging the sectarian violence in Iraq that has raised the number of American casualties there.
For the past few months, congressional Democrats have been warning the Bush administration against creating a pretext for a military strike against Iran, which many fear could spark a regional conflict.
On Tuesday, at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the war in Iraq, Chairman Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, asked military leaders whether the United States was preparing to strike Iran.
"Mr Chairman it is not true," Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. "Categorically sir," he added.