U.S. Democrats Vow New Challenge On Iraq

U.S. Democratic Party lawmakers are pledging renewed efforts to curtail U.S. involvement in the Iraq war.

day after senators from President George W. Bush's Republican Party blocked a symbolic Senate resolution opposing the new U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, Democrats on February 18 suggested they may now try to revise Congress' 2002 measure authorizing the use of force in Iraq.

"I think, probably, the best approach would be to modify the authorization to the president to go to war in Iraq," the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin (Michigan) said in an interview with U.S. television on February 18. "That was a wide-open authorization, which allowed him to do just about anything and put us now deep into combat in Iraq and now into the neighborhoods of Baghdad. We -- I think we'll be looking at a modification of that authorization in order to limit the mission of American troops to a support mission instead of a combat mission. And that is very different from cutting off funds."

Republicans have indicated they will likely oppose any such effort by the Democratic majority in Congress.

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