Senate republicans block call for phased Iraq pull-out

THE Republican-controlled Senate easily defeated a Democratic effort yesterday to pressure President George Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal from Iraq.

It overwhelmingly endorsed a weaker statement calling on the administration to explain its Iraq policy. Senators also voted to endorse the Bush administration's military tribunals for prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but to allow the detainees to appeal their detention status and punishments to a federal court.

On the question of a timetable for troop withdrawal, senators rejected the Democrats' proposal by 58-40. Democratic leaders had advanced the measure in the wake of declining public support for a conflict that has claimed more than 2,000 US lives and cost more than €170 billion.

Yesterday's fast-paced developments underscored the political significance of the war as the US death toll climbs, public support plummets, the insurgency continues and the price tag soars with no end in sight.

The Senate added the Iraq policy to a defence bill the Senate approved on a 98-0 vote on Tuesday.

Overall, the bill includes provisions that, taken together, mark an effort by the Senate to rein in some of the wide authority lawmakers gave the president following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The measure includes White House-opposed language that would prohibit the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees and standardise interrogation procedures used by US troops.

The Bush administration has threatened to veto any bill that includes language about the treatment of detainees, arguing it would limit the president's ability to prevent terrorist attacks.

Senators added the language yesterday that would allow Guantanamo detainees to appeal their status as "enemy combatants" and the rulings of US military tribunals to a federal appeals court in Washington, DC. That avenue would take the place of the one tool the Supreme Court gave detainees in 2004 to fight the legality of their detentions - the right to file habeas corpus petitions in any federal court.

Critics said that provision did not provide a meaningful way for detainees to appeal their status or the decisions of military tribunals.