US:US president George Bush faces a serious confrontation with Congress over Iraq after Democratic congressional leaders warned they would oppose sending more US troops.
A day after their party took control of Congress for the first time in 12 years, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Mr Bush to resist calls for a military "surge" in Iraq.
"Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain. And it would undermine our efforts to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq," they said in a letter to the president.
Mr Bush will next week announce a new strategy for Iraq that is expected to involve a temporary increase in troop numbers as part of a counterinsurgency effort that would also include job creation and small business loan schemes.
The president yesterday began a major reshuffle of his national security team in advance of next week's announcement, replacing national intelligence director John Negroponte with retired admiral Mike McConnell. Mr Negroponte will become Condoleezza Rice's deputy secretary of state.
Mr Bush was last night preparing to announce further changes, including the replacement of his two top generals in Iraq, John Abizaid, the senior commander in the Middle East, and George Casey, the chief general in Iraq. The president will replace Gen Abizaid with Adm William Fallon, the top US commander in the Pacific, and Gen Casey with Lt Gen David Petraeus, who led the effort to train Iraqi security forces.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is expected to move to the United Nations, succeeding John Bolton, who was unable to win congressional support for staying there. Mr Khalilzad is likely to be replaced by Ryan Crocker, who is currently ambassador to Pakistan.
Although the proposal to send more troops to Iraq has the support of some senior Republicans, including Senator John McCain, it is opposed by most members of Congress. In yesterday's letter, Ms Pelosi and Mr Reid reminded the president that he must now deal with a new political reality.
"The American people demonstrated in the November elections that they do not believe your current Iraq policy will lead to success and that we need a change in direction for the sake of our troops and the Iraqi people," they said.
The letter suggested that Democrats in Congress may be uniting around the approach of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which last month called for the withdrawal of most US troops by next year and a major diplomatic engagement with Iraq's neighbours, including Iran and Syria.
"Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counterterror. A renewed diplomatic strategy, both within the region and beyond, is also required to help the Iraqis agree to a sustainable political settlement," Mr Reid and Ms Pelosi said.
Congressional Democrats have said they will not cut off funding for military operations in Iraq but they could refuse funding for the economic part of a counterinsurgency plan.
The Iraq war has already cost the US $300 billion, as well as the lives of more than 3,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of casualties.