Kerry extends troop withdrawal date

WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry is pushing back by six months the deadline he wants to set for removing combat troops from Iraq, as he seeks to build support in the Senate for his plan for troop withdrawal.

The proposal to be offered by Kerry today would require President Bush to remove nearly all US troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007. The Massachusetts Democrat's initial plan -- to remove troops by the end of 2006 -- received just six votes in the Senate last week, and the later date is intended to build support for the proposal, said April Boyd, a Kerry spokeswoman.

``Every vote for a deadline withdrawal is Congress saying to President Bush that we will not accept war without an end policy in Iraq," Boyd said.

Yet the concept of any deadline for troop withdrawal remains controversial among Democrats. Prominent Democratic senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York , have rejected the idea of setting a time frame for bringing home troops.

Hoping to build cohesion among Democrats, party leaders yesterday introduced a nonbinding resolution that calls on the president to begin a ``phased withdrawal" of troops by the end of this year but does not set a deadline for complete removal.

That resolution, expected to get the votes of most of the Senate's 44 Democrats, would not set any deadline that would force the hands of military leaders, said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But Levin said that by calling for at least some troops to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the resolution would send an important message that the United States does not have an ``open-ended commitment" to staying in Iraq. ``Three-and-a-half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent," Levin said. ``Only the Iraqis can make a nation out of Iraq."

The Senate will vote on both the Kerry and Levin proposals today or tomorrow, as Congress wraps up an unusual series of debates on the Iraq war. Democrats have sought to use the opportunity to focus attention on Bush administration missteps in the war, but Republicans have relished the chance to exploit Democratic divisions over the best way forward.

Both Democratic plans are expected to be defeated by wide margins in the Senate, where Republicans control 55 of the 100 seats. ``Let me be clear: Retreat is not a solution," Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement. ``Artificial deadlines are not the solution, and those calling for an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq utterly fail to understand the potentially catastrophic implications of their proposal."

The proposal developed by Levin and Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, is the product of numerous meetings among Democrats who want to present a united Democratic position on the war.

Aside from phased redeployment of troops, it calls for the president to present a plan for troop-level reductions by the end of the year. It also anticipates leaving a significant number of troops elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, where they can respond quickly to emergencies in Iraq and other hot spots.

But Kerry and his co author, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, insist that only a firm deadline for near-total withdrawal will give the fledgling Iraqi government the credibility it needs to begin to secure the country on its own.

``A deadline gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government, and most importantly, it allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country," Kerry and Feingold said yesterday in a joint statement.

The Kerry-Feingold proposal would leave in Iraq only those US troops who are training Iraqi security forces, protecting American assets, or conducting `` targeted counter-terrorist operations."