Two senators try to build support on measure opposing Bush war plan

WASHINGTON -- Two leading Senate Democrats sought to build support yesterday for a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush's war strategy in Iraq, cautioning that division over whether it goes far enough could spell defeat.

"The worst thing we can do is to vote on something critical of the current policy and lose it," said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The public doesn't support his policy, a majority of Congress doesn't support his policy."

"If we lose it, the president will use the defeat of a resolution as support of his public policy," Levin said on "Fox News Sunday."

The new Democratic-led Congress heads this week toward its first vote on the war, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning debate Wednesday on a resolution condemning Bush's proposal to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and Anbar Province.

A vote could come as early as that same day.

The proposed nonbinding resolution, which is largely symbolic and would have no effect on money for troops, states that "it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq."

It has generated some division among Democrats who want to go further by cutting funding for new troops, moderates in both parties who want softer language, and Republican leaders who have vowed to filibuster.

Levin and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who sponsored the resolution along with Republicans Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, called their proposal a first step that would send a "powerful message" that Bush must change course.

Other congressional steps, such as limiting federal appropriations for the war, could come later if Bush were to continue pushing forward with additional troops in defiance of the resolution, they said.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, played down the notion that support could splinter over how far lawmakers should go to restrain the president's power to wage war.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," he said he expected the half-dozen competing proposals to oppose the war each would get an airing. "I don't think there's any muddled message here," Biden said. "They'll all get a chance to be voted on, with some discussion."

The proposals to limit the war vary. Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, say they want to cut funding for new troops to prevent the deployments. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, has a proposal that would cap troops at existing levels.