The Republican rebellion against the war in Iraq widened over the weekend as more of the party’s senators voiced dissent from President George W. Bush’s strategy.
Republican unity on Iraq has shattered in recent weeks, amid mounting pessimism about the ability of US forces to bring stability to the country.
Weakening Republican support for the war has left Mr Bush increasingly isolated as congressional Democrats prepare for a fresh barrage of votes aimed at forcing a US withdrawal.
Three more Republican senators have called for a change of course recently, adding to a steady trickle of defections since Richard Lugar became the most senior to break from Mr Bush over the war last month.
“It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy,” Lamar Alexander of Tennessee told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire told the same newspaper that efforts to quell the violence in Iraq by increasing US troop numbers “don’t seem to be making a lot of progress” and called for “a clear blueprint” to end the war.
The comments came two days after Pete Domenici of New Mexico, said he could no longer support current strategy.
The three senators are among six Republicans who have voiced support for bipartisan legislation that aims to prepare the ground for US troops to start leaving Iraq by March next year. The measure is among the more moderate of several proposals for troop withdrawal and limits on war spending set for debate in Congress over the next few weeks, as Democrats launch a fresh push to end the war.
The White House has appealed for Republicans to withhold judgment until September, when Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, is scheduled to deliver a progress report to Congress.
But Chuck Hagel, the moderate Republican senator from Nebraska and a longstanding critic of the war, on Sunday warned that the party’s patience was wearing thin.
“If we do not see this administration take some initiatives to make some changes, significant strategic policy changes over the next 90 days, then of course it will be forced on [Mr Bush],” he told NBC’s Meet the Press.
The most urgent calls for a policy change are coming from Republicans facing tough re-election battles in 2008, highlighting concern throughout the party about the impact of the war on next year’s congressional and presidential polls.
Charles Schumer, Democratic senator for New York, said Republicans were “getting hammered” by their constituents over the war, and predicted the trickle of defections would soon turn into a torrent. “I think the dam is about to burst,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “By September there will be real change forced upon the president by a bipartisan Senate.”
Mr Bush last week re-newed his warning against a hasty exit from Iraq, arguing that a withdrawal “based on politics, not on the advice and recommendations of our military commanders, would not be in our national interest”.
US and coalition casualties in Iraq have increased to an average of about 3.5 a day since Mr Bush took his decision to increase troop numbers in January - the highest sustained rate since the end of the initial invasion in 2003. More than 3,600 US troops have died since the war began.
