US Senate Republicans stop more leave for troops

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) U S Senate Republicans has blocked a proposal to give American troops in Iraq more rest from battle, as Democrats renewed their attempts to change President George W Bush's Iraq policy.

While the White House won this initial skirmish on a military policy bill, it lost support of seven of Bush's fellow Republicans in the Senate's vote on requiring minimum rest times between troop deployments. Six of the seven Republicans are up for re-election next year.

Trying to calm dissent among a growing number of Republicans over the Iraq war, the White House dispatched national security adviser Stephen Hadley to Capitol Hill for the second straight day, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned lawmakers.

Rice and Hadley urged senators to back Bush's determination to wait until September for an evaluation by Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, instead of embracing some lawmakers' attempts to impose change now with a series of votes this month.

''Basically the White House position is we should wait to hear from General Petraeus before we take another step,'' said Sen Lamar Alexander of Tennessee after a session with Hadley yesterday.

Alexander is Republican co-sponsor of one of the more moderate proposals for change, a plan to embrace the suggestions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Seven Republicans joined 48 Democrats and one independent to vote for a plan by Virginia Sen. James Webb to insure that US troops, many of whom have endured multiple deployments to Iraq, get adequate time at home between tours of duty.

But that was still four votes short of the 60 needed on the motion, a procedural hurdle erected by Republicans in the 100-member Senate.

'BACKDOOR WAY' Webb, a former Marine, argued that his plan did not explicitly alter Iraq policy. But Republicans saw it as a ''backdoor way to hamstring'' deployments, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said.

Webb's amendment was thought to have had more appeal to Republicans than others requiring a timetable for withdrawal.

But the outcome underscored difficulties Democrats face in getting 60 votes in the closely divided Senate for any of their pullout proposals to be debated this month -- despite intensifying Republican unease over the unpopular war.

Democrats pilloried the Senate's Republican leaders for insisting all war-related amendments scale the 60-vote hurdle.

''Some of my Republican colleagues are protecting their president rather than protecting our troops,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Reid said the Senate will soon take up the most stringent proposal for changing Iraq policy -- requiring a US troop drawdown to finish by April 30. Several Republicans have signed up to co-sponsor that proposal, including Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

The House of Representatives Democratic leadership said it would take up a similar bill today, in what some saw as an effort to goad the Senate into action.

INTERIM REPORT Also today, the Bush administration is expected to issue an interim report on the situation in Iraq and how the government in Baghdad is performing, officials said.

''We will all hear the US government's sober assessment of that tomorrow,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The Senate did agree 97-0 on an amendment confronting Iran over its ''proxy attacks'' on US soldiers. Sponsor Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said Iran has been training and equipping gunmen who kill US troops in Iraq.

''The Senate is blowing the whistle on Iran. We know what they are doing, we know it is resulting in the death of American soldiers in Iraq, and they better stop it,'' he said.

But at the insistence of Democrats, Lieberman added wording to say that this was not authorizing armed force against Iran.

REUTERS PDS BST0428