US Senate deflects push for Rumsfeld's ouster

WASHINGTON, Sep 7 (Reuters) Senate Republicans blocked a no-confidence vote on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as Democrats sought to keep attention on the unpopular Iraq war before November's congressional elections.

Trying to stem the drag on their poll numbers caused by Iraq, Republicans denounced as a political stunt the Democrats' resolution urging President George W. Bush to replace Rumsfeld, whom they depict as a symbol of the war's failures, and to ''change course in Iraq to provide a strategy for success.'' ''The Democrat amendment may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack,'' Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said of the amendment that capped growing demands from Democrats for Rumsfeld's ouster.

But Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, called for ''accountability for this breathtaking incompetence which has put our soldiers in daily danger and weakened American national security.'' While Democrats blasted Rumsfeld as a key architect of the war, they said the problem was broader than the secretary and said Bush must abandon failing policies.

Most Democrats want a plan to start withdrawing US troops but without a deadline to complete the pullout, while the administration says it will keep troops in Iraq as long as necessary.

With control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate at stake in November's midterm elections, Republicans portrayed Democrats as weak on terrorism while Democrats decried the administration's handling of the 3-1/2 year war in which more than 2,600 US service members have died.

The White House on Tuesday accused Democrats of trying to turn Rumsfeld into a ''boogeyman'' before the elections, and dismissed calls for his dismissal.

A Republican who has fiercely criticized Rumsfeld, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Bush deserves to have his choice to head the Pentagon.

But some Republicans in tight races have distanced themselves from the defense secretary who is known for his sometimes glib and combative comments.

The 74-year-old Rumsfeld -- one of the longest-serving defense secretaries -- came under renewed fire last week for a speech to the American Legion in which he likened critics of the administration's Iraq policies to those who appeased Nazi Germany before World War II.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, called it a ''low and ugly political speech, smearing those who dissent from the catastrophic policy.'' Kerry added, ''I think it's immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die in conflict with a strategy that is failing, and a mission that has not weakened terrorism but strengthened it.'' REUTERS DH PM0605