U.S. Republicans reignite Iraq war debate

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's Iraq war policy suffered a second blow in as many days on Tuesday when another senior senator from his Republican party publicly called for U.S. troop withdrawals.

A day after Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar declared that Bush's "surge" policy of adding troops was not working, Senator George Voinovich of Ohio sent Bush a letter "expressing his belief that our nation must begin to develop a comprehensive plan for our gradual military disengagement from Iraq," Voinovich's office announced.

Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and Voinovich is a member of that panel. The Ohioan made his move even as Democrats were hailing Lugar for publicly criticizing the Iraq war, saying Lugar had reignited what had seemed a stalled debate.

In a Senate floor speech on Monday night, Lugar said the United States should draw down its troops in Iraq and redeploy some of them in the region before it is too late to do so politically -- before the U.S. 2008 presidential campaign gets into full swing and partisan confrontation limits options.

U.S. policy was limiting America's diplomatic effectiveness around the world and straining the U.S. military, Lugar said. "The costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved."

Although Democrats believe they were catapulted to power in Congress by voters who wanted to end the war, they have been unable to translate that mandate into legislation bringing about an end to the conflict, largely because not enough Republicans have joined them in the narrowly-divided Senate,

"I believe that Senator Lugar's words yesterday could be remembered as the turning point in this intractable civil war in Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002 but soured on the conflict.

"But that will depend on whether more Republicans take the stand that Senator Lugar took, the courageous stand," Reid said.