Senators debate resolution against Bush's Iraq war policy

Democrats took the first step toward a wartime repudiation of US president George Bush today, convening a Senate committee to endorse legislation declaring that the deployment of additional troops to Iraq is “not in the national interest".

“We better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, the only Republican on the committee to announce support for the measure.