In blow to Democrats, Senate kills anti-war bill !

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush's administration Wednesday thwarted the latest bid by Democrats to derail its Iraq strategy, as the Senate blocked a bid to limit the numbers of troops ready for deployment.

After wavering Republican Senators came under fierce political pressure, the bill garnered 56 votes in the 100-member chamber, but in a stinging defeat for Democrats, fell four votes short of the required 60-vote supermajority.

The measure, framed by Democratic Senator James Webb, and co-sponsored by Republican war critic Senator Chuck Hagel, would have mandated rest periods for troops equal to the length of time they spent on combat tours.

Its failure was the latest bitter disappointment for Democrats who grabbed control of Congress last year, but have repeatedly failed to change the course of US strategy in the unpopular war.

Hagel had argued in a day of impassioned debate that US troops were being stretched beyond endurance, and facing rising rates of stress, divorce and personal hardship by repeated combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We cannot continue to look at war and the people who fight and die in wars as abstractions, as pawns, as objects," said Hagel.

"The humanity of this is lost.

But critics branded the bill a "back-door" attempt to enforce a drawdown of US troops from Iraq. Supporters did not dispute the fact it would limit troop levels, but said it was vital to ease the strain on the US military.

Though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had warned he would ask Bush to veto the measure had it passed, the bill was seen as the Democrats best shot this year of challenging Bush's control of the war.

Republicans celebrated the defeat of the bill, which they said would have amounted to a legislated surrender in Iraq, a week after Bush declared his troop surge strategy a success.

Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain branded the bill "dangerous," adding it would have "the effect of changing policy on the war."

Republican Senator Jim Bunning issued an outspoken attack on the bill.

"I will not support this slow bleed strategy in Iraq, it ties the hands of our commanders," he said.

Republican Senator John Warner, an expert on the military, who has expressed disquiet about war strategy, had considered voting for the measure, but was swayed by top military brass in a meeting on Wednesday.

He said the provision would interfere with Bush's gradual troop redeployment plan from Iraq, to 'pre-surge' levels of around 130,000 by mid-2008, and would limit specialist troops available in Iraq.

"I regretfully say I have been convinced by those in professional uniform -- they cannot do it," said Warner.

Another Republican Senator Arlen Specter, who had expressed interest in the bill, also changed his mind of meeting senior military officers.

Webb said he had been hopeful that the bill would get the required 60 votes, but concluded his quest was derailed by a fierce lobbying operation organized by the White House.

"When it became possible, and likely that we would get to 60 votes, the White House really revved up the engines on this," he told reporters after the vote.

The bill's 56-vote tally was exactly the same as the number a similar version garnered in June, when it last came up for the vote, showing little progress by Democrats in thwarting Bush's war strategy.

Faced with apparently solid Republican backing for Bush on the war in the Senate, Democrats are now expected to make several symbolic -- but almost certain to fail -- attempts to establish troop withdrawal timetables.

By the Democratic script, September was supposed to have been the month, when constant pressure on wavering Republican senators broke the back of Bush's support for the war in Congress.

But a public relations campaign by the White House, and testimony by war commander General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker now seems to have been decisive.