IRAQ:Republican senators joined Democrats yesterday in expressing impatience and scepticism over calls by the top American military and political figures in Iraq for the bulk of US forces to remain in Iraq for at least another year.
As Gen David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker began their second day of testimony on Capitol Hill, they faced a series of tough questions from senators about the US mission in Iraq and the lack of political progress despite some improvement in security.
Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the foreign relations committee, reflected a sense of growing unease within his party when he complained that it was not enough to call for more time for the current strategy to work.
"At this stage of the conflict, with our military strained by Iraq deployments and our global advantages being diminished by the weight of our burden in Iraq, it is not enough for the administration to counsel patience until the next milestone or report," he said.
"We need to see a strategy for how our troops and other resources in Iraq might be employed to fundamentally change the equation."
Mr Lugar criticised the administration's failure to create a forum for regional co-operation in stabilising Iraq, despite what he described as the clear interests of Iraq's neighbours in curtailing the violence.
"Bold and creative regional diplomacy is not just an accompaniment to our efforts in Iraq. It is a precondition," he said.
"If we have not made substantial diplomatic progress by the time a post-surge policy is implemented, our options will be severely constrained, and we will be guessing at a viable course in a rapidly evolving environment."
Gen Petraeus has held out the prospect of limited troop withdrawals starting within weeks, so that force numbers could be down to about 130,000 by next August, the same level as before the "surge" began earlier this year.
Armed services committee chairman Carl Levin said that Democrats were drafting new legislation to hasten the end of the war.
He added that the party was hoping to attract the support of enough Republicans to block a filibuster. "We're still trying to figure out how we can bring real change of policy in Iraq. What the administration is obviously proposing is a continuation of the status quo by returning to a pre-surge level," Mr Levin said.
Foreign relations committee chairman Joe Biden said that, regardless of the security gains trumpeted by Gen Petraeus, the surge was not fulfilling its stated purpose of accelerating reconciliation between Iraq's communities.
"Are we any closer to a lasting political settlement in Iraq at the national level today than we were when the surge began eight months ago, and if we continue to surge for another six months, is there any evidence that the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds will stop killing each other and start governing together? The answer to both those questions is no," Mr Biden said.
Yesterday's hearing came as Americans commemorated the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, in ceremonies throughout the country.
Relatives of the victims of the World Trade Center attack gathered at Ground Zero in New York for a quiet memorial that was attended by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.
"That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other. Six years have passed, and our place is still by your side," New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Osama bin Laden marked the anniversary by releasing a new video, his second within a week, calling on young Muslims throughout the world to follow the example of the September 11th hijackers by joining "a caravan of martyrs".
In Bin Laden's own words:
So there is a huge difference between the path of the kings, presidents and hypocritical Ulama [Islamic scholars] and the path of these noble young men, like al-Shehri [one of the 9/11 hijackers] The former's lot is to spoil and enjoy themselves whereas the latter's lot is to destroy themselves for Allah's Word to be Supreme.
It remains for us to do our part. So I tell every young man among the youth of Islam: it is your duty to join the caravan (of martyrs) until the sufficiency is complete and the march to aid the High and Omnipotent continues.