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Democrats to resist troop plan

Julian Borger

Response to Bush's "one last push'' strategy in Iraq

Washington: The new majority leader in the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid, said on Thursday the Democrats would do everything they can to stop George Bush sending more troops to Iraq.

Mr. Reid believed the President would not be able to find 20,000 U.S. reinforcements for ``one last push'' in Iraq, a plan reported in the London Guardian on Thursday, because the armed forces were already stretched too thin.

``I'd rather doubt he'd do that, because we don't have the troops,'' said Mr. Reid, who will become the most powerful figure in the Senate when the newly elected Congress convenes in January. ``We don't have a single non-deployed army unit that is battle ready.''

There is, however, little the new Democrat majority could do to stop the administration if it was determined to send more Americans into the fray in a final attempt to crush the militancy and curb sectarian violence. Democrat leaders, fearful of being seen to betray American soldiers, have said they will not cut off war funding. Short of that, their power would be to pass resolutions and protest.

``We are not going to back off this,'' Mr. Reid said. ``We are going to do everything we can to let people know that if Bush was to go in this direction, we're going to speak out loudly. The whole situation in Iraq is breaking down, and the President has to realise that.''

The Democrats have interpreted their election victory as a popular vote for a change of course in Iraq. After the election the President said he was open to new ideas and invited Mr. Reid and his deputy, Dick Durbin, to the White House, but Mr. Reid said it did not appear that the invitation augured an openness to a fresh approach. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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