IRAQ - Bush Defies US Lawmakers On Iraq.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on July 9 said President Bush was not contemplating a change of strategy in Iraq, in spite of intensifying bipartisan US pressure on him to start reducing American troop numbers in the country. The defiant message came amid rapidly eroding support for the war within Bush's Republican Party and a growing sense of inevitability in Washington that the US will soon be forced to seek an exit from Iraq.

Snow said there was "no debate right now" within the administration about taking immediate steps to withdraw troops. His comments came in response to a New York Times report that administration officials had started to consider whether Bush should announce plans for a US retreat from the most dangerous neighbourhoods of Baghdad and other cities. The report said the internal debate was prompted by the growing Republican rebellion over the war, with several of the party's senators having called for a change in strategy.

Bush had hoped to maintain party unity until September, when top US commander in Iraq Lt Gen David Petraeus is scheduled to deliver a progress report to Congress. But the flurry of Republican defections has raised doubts about how much longer the party can resist efforts by congressional Democrats to end the war.

Democrats plan to use a Senate debate over defence policy, which started on July 9, as a vehicle to launch a fresh wave of proposals for troop withdrawals and limits on war spending. Senate majority leader Harry Reid called on Republican rebels to "put their words into action" by supporting the Democratic measures, saying: "We cannot wait until September to act. We have an opportunity over the next couple of weeks to truly change our Iraq strategy... American people expect change and they expect it now".

The push for withdrawal was likely to gain added momentum later this month, when Congress is scheduled to receive an interim report on progress in Iraq. The report is expected to show that most of the targets for bringing stability to Iraq remain unmet. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates cancelled a trip to South America so that he could participate in meetings on Iraq, increasing the sense of crisis over the war policy.

Chuck Hagel, the moderate Republican senator for Nebraska, on July 8 said: "Political support for this war is gone. So we're going to have to move towards some new policy that must be focused on political accommodation".

Growing Republican dissent in part reflects the inability of the military to persuade Congress and the US public that the "surge" of troops ordered by Bush in January is working. Military commanders recently conceded that in spite of the influx of 30,000 US troops to the Baghdad area, the coalition had only secured about a third of the capital.

Violence against US troops has escalated since the surge began in February. The daily military death toll has increased to an average of 3.5, which is the highest sustained rate since the end of major combat operations in May 2003. The number of US military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan on July 9 topped 4,000, said the Pentagon. The number of US soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq is approaching 27,000, of which 12,000 have not returned to combat.

Sen. Reid said: "The surge was supposed to provide Iraqi political leaders the space to make the compromises necessary to unite this nation. It hasn't happened, despite the bravery of our troops". His comments reflected efforts by politicians from both parties to focus attention on the failures of the Iraqi government to help justify their calls for US withdrawal.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy on July 8 said: "It is time to say to the Iraqis 'We are leaving, it's time for you, you Iraqis, to pull together and work your way out of this civil war'".

A recent CBS poll found that 26% of Americans believed the US should decrease its troop presence in Iraq, and 40% thought the Pentagon should remove all soldiers; 76% believed the surge had either had no impact or was making the situation in Iraq worse.

Asked recently how bringing the surge troops home sooner rather than later would affect US military operations in Iraq, Maj Gen Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said it would be a "mess", warning: "If you did that...you'd find the enemy regaining ground, re-establishing a sanctuary, building more IEDs [improvised explosive devices], carrying those IEDs in Baghdad, and the violence would escalate. It would be a mess".