US Senate sets all-night Iraq war debate

WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) US Senate Democrats, hoping to raise pressure on President George W. Bush and his fellow Republicans to pull troops from Iraq, have scheduled an around-the-clock war debate starting today.

''I think that the American people deserve what we're doing and that is focusing attention every minute of the day on what is going wrong in Iraq,'' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters yesterday in unveiling the rare marathon work day.

Reid said the Senate will stay in session all night today and tomorrow to debate war policy and a Democratic plan requiring the pull-out of all US combat troops from Iraq by the end of April 2008.

Democrats have all but publicly acknowledged that they will be unable to pass their end-the-war amendment because opposition Republicans are insisting on 60 votes for a victory.

Reid said that without the Republicans' procedural hurdle, a simple majority of the 100-member Senate would vote for the troop withdrawal, with ''a number of Republicans'' supporting it.

With recent polls showing growing US public opposition to the war, now in its fifth year, and widespread frustration with Congress' lack of progress in ending it, Democrats have vowed to force votes in coming months on Bush's Iraq policy.

Last week, the US House of Representatives approved a similar bill that would remove combat troops by April 1, 2008.

The White House has been urging Democrats and wavering Republicans to wait until mid-September before even talking about withdrawing troops.

That is when the Pentagon will deliver to Congress a status report on Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad by injecting about 30,000 more soldiers into the war.

Besides legislation calling for a mandatory withdrawal of troops, other Senate amendments were likely to be voted on this week, including a Republican plan asking Bush to prepare to possibly begin withdrawing troops by year-end.

Democratic leaders dismissed any legislation that does not force Bush to remove troops. ''The president won't change unless we require him,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Under the legislation by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, an unspecified number of non-combat US troops would stay in Iraq after the withdrawal to help train Iraqi soldiers, conduct counter-terrorism missions and protect US diplomats.

Reuters JK VP0422