US:Democratic leaders in Congress have rejected an offer by President George Bush of talks to resolve an impasse on funding the Iraq war, claiming that the president wants to dictate terms rather than negotiate.
Mr Bush has invited the Democratic leaders to discuss the way forward on a Bill that would fund the war in Iraq "without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground".
The Senate and the House of Representatives have already passed Bills that would authorise more than $100 billion in extra funding for the war on condition that the president agrees a timeline to withdraw from Iraq.
Mr Bush has said he will veto any Bill that includes such a condition and Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House speaker Nancy Pelosi claim his offer of talks is meaningless.
"Congressional Democrats are willing to meet with the president at any time, but we believe that any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions. Our goal should be to produce an Iraq supplemental Bill that both fully funds our troops and gives them a strategy for success," the two Democratic leaders said in a statement.
The standoff comes as the Washington Post reports that at least three retired four-star generals have turned down a White House offer to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper said that the White House wants to appoint a "tsar" to co-ordinate action by the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies.
Retired marine general Jack Sheehan, one of those who rejected the post, said that hawks around the vice-president, Dick Cheney, remained more powerful within the administration than pragmatists who are looking for a way out.
"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going . . . So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks'," Gen Sheehan told the Washington Post.
He said he had always been sceptical about the Iraq war and it was clear that the original advocates of the invasion retained the upper hand within the administration. "There's the residue of the Cheney view - 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' - that justifies anything we did. And then there's the pragmatist view - 'How the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive?' Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain yesterday condemned Democrats in Congress for seeking to tie the president's hands in Iraq by linking war funding to a plan for withdrawal. Speaking at the Virginia Military Institute, Mr McCain acknowledged that he could pay a high political price for his support for the war but warned that the Democratic strategy was endangering US national security interests.
"It may appear to be the easier course of action but it is a much more reckless one, and it earns them no credit even if it gives them an advantage in the next election. This is an historic choice, with ramifications for Americans not yet born," he said.
Mr McCain, whose presidential bid has been struggling as he trails Republican rivals in popularity and in fundraising, said that instead of rejoicing in the political difficulties their opposition to the Iraq war is causing the president, Democrats should be supporting a strategy for victory.
"A defeat for the United States is a cause for mourning not celebrating. And determining how the United States can avert such a disaster should encourage the most sober, public-spirited reasoning among our elected leaders . . . Democrats who voted to authorise this war, and criticised the failed strategy that has led us to this perilous moment, have the same responsibility I do - to offer support when that failure is recognised and the right strategy is proposed and the right commanders take the field to implement it or, at the least, to offer an alternative strategy that has some relationship to reality."