US Senate Raises Pressure.

With President Bush facing growing public displeasure over the war, the US Senate on Nov. 15 approved by 79 to 19 an amendment to a defence bill which clearly expresses concern over the failure of Iraqis to step up and strengthen their own security capabilities. But the Senate rejected demands by Democrats that the US set a timetable for withdrawing US troops in 2006. It said 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty", creating conditions "for the phased redeployment of US troops from Iraq". The overall bill, authorising $491.6 bn in spending for the Pentagon, passed in the Senate on Nov. 15. (The legislation has become the focus for a heated congressional debate on Bush's handling of Iraq and the war on terrorism. It includes a further amendment - which has drawn a veto threat from Bush - which would bar mistreatment of all detainees in US custody. The White House has been demanding an exemption for the CIA. But on other issues Senate Republicans have stood more closely behind the president).

Republicans united on Nov. 15 to reject a Democrat amendment which would have required a phased withdrawal of US troops beginning in 2006. Bill Frist, the Senate Republican leader, called the proposal "dangerous" and "irresponsible", saying it would have played into the hands of terrorists who are waiting for the US to leave Iraq. Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that alternative language agreed to on Nov. 15 could in no way be construed as setting a timetable for withdrawing US troops. Nonetheless, he said it would send "a very powerful statement" to the Iraqi people "that we have done our share...but we expect from them equal if not greater support than they have given to this point".

Sunnis Say Crackdown Exacts Toll: Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq on Nov. 13 warned that military and police crackdowns were alienating their minority community before Dec. 15 elections for a new National Assembly and a new government. The warning followed a call by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her surprise visit to Iraq on Nov. 11, for greater Sunni participation in the political process amid fears that a widening sectarian divide could spark civil war.

In the face of continuing rebel attacks which left at least 10 people dead on Nov. 13, President Jalal Talabani said an immediate withdrawal of US-led troops would be "catastrophic". Sunni Arabs, who dominated Saddam's regime and all previous Iraqi governments, largely boycotted the last parliamentary elections on Jan. 30 and have provided the mainstay of the anti-US insurgency.

A statement from the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), a leading Sunni religious group which previously used to be called Muslim Brotherhood, said: "Large-scale military operations are making the life of local people hell, with disastrous consequences that have led to the deaths of civilians, destruction and arrests". It added: "The party condemns these military operations and calls for their immediate halt in all provinces, especially Al-Anbar and Diyala" - referring to provinces west and north-east of Baghdad. Such operations are "likely to undermine both the political process in these provinces and the security situation" in the days before the Dec. 15 elections. "The goal of these operations is to exclude Sunni Arabs from participating" in the elections, charged another Sunni group, the General Conference of the Iraqi People. It said the Shi'ite-led government must "halt its military operations" and release political and religious leaders arrested in Diyala.

Iraqi security forces on Nov. 12 arrested more than 350 people in Ba'quba, the capital of ethnically mixed Diyala Province, including members of the IIP. US and Iraqi troops have been involved in major operations in Al-Anbar, near the Syrian border. The forces have been sweeping through several towns whose residents fled the offensives.

With Iraq's own fledgling security forces still heavily dependent on foreign support, President Talabani warned that any precipitate withdrawal of US-led troops would be "catastrophic". Talabani insisted that Iraqis did not want foreign soldiers to stay indefinitely, but added that Iraqi forces needed to be strong enough before US-led coalition forces pulled out. US commanders have said offensives, especially those in the western province of Anbar, are aimed at encouraging Sunni Arabs to vote on Dec. 15 without fear of intimidation by insurgents opposed to the political process.

Despite a rising casualty toll, US officials have been encouraged because so many Sunni Arab groups have decided to run in the elections, hoping that will induce members of the Sunni-dominated insurgency to stop fighting. That would allow US and other coalition troops to begin heading home next year. The majority Shi'ite Arabs and their Kurdish allies won the Jan. 30 elections and now dominate the National Assembly. This has ratcheted up sectarian tensions and reprisal killings. Many Sunni politicians now consider the January boycott a disaster for their community. But Sunni hardliners - including insurgents and many religious leaders - remain adamantly opposed to the political process. "Our position is unchanged", Shaikh Muhammad Bashar al-Faydhi, spokesman for the hardline Association of Muslim Scholars, told reporters on Nov. 13, adding: "We will not participle in the political process as long as the occupation exists". But he suggested that might change if Washington offered a timetable for withdrawal.

However, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shi'ite, on Nov. 11 said US troops could begin leaving in significant numbers sometime next year. Talabani predicted in an interview televised on Nov. 13 in London that the 8,500 British soldiers could be gone by end-2006 - although he was not speaking for the government. Talabani told Britain's ITV that no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain indefinitely, adding that Iraq's own soldiers should be ready to take over from British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year.