US Senate anger as top Democrat says Iraq war is 'lost'

The bleak assessment - the most pointed yet from Reid - came before the House of Representatives voted 215-199 yesterday to uphold legislation ordering troops out of Iraq next year.

Reid said he told President George Bush on Wednesday that he thought the war could not be won through military force, and only political, economic and diplomatic means could bring success.

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defence and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - know this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq," Reid said.

The "surge" refers to Bush's current plan of putting an additional 30,000 soldiers into the violent mix in Iraq to pacify and hold Baghdad, the capital.

Republicans pounced on Reid's comment as evidence that Democrats did not support the troops.

"I can't begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the US Senate has declared the war is lost," said the Senate's Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell.

The exchange came before the House headed towards a vote on whether to demand that troops leave Iraq next year. Last month, the House passed legislation that funded the war in Iraq, but ordered combat missions to end by September 2008.

The Senate passed similar, less-sweeping legislation that would set a non-binding goal of bringing combat troops home by March 31 2008.

"Our troops won the war clearly, cleanly and quickly," said Democratic Rep David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "But now they are stuck in a civil war" and the only solution is a political and diplomatic compromise.

"And there is no soldier who can get that done," he said.

The House voted mostly along party lines to insist congressional negotiators trying to reconcile the House and Senate Bills retain the firm timetable.

Despite the vote, orchestrated by Republicans to try to embarrass Democrats, aides said Democrats were leaning towards accepting the Senate's non-binding goal.

The compromise Bill is also expected to retain House provisions preventing military units from being worn out by excessive combat deployments; however, the president could waive these standards if he states so publicly.

Bush said he would veto either measure and warned that troops were being harmed by Congress' failure to deliver the funds quickly.

Meanwhile, US defence secretary Robert Gates, on an unannounced trip to Iraq, delivered a sharp message to the country's political leaders, saying the US military's commitment to the war was not open-ended.

"The clock is ticking," Gates told reporters, saying he would warn Iraqi officials that they must move faster on political reconciliation.

"I know it's difficult, and clearly the attack on the council of representatives has made people nervous, but I think that it's very important that they bend every effort to getting this legislation done as quickly as possible."