Senate Armed Services Hearing On Iraq

UNITED STATES - JANUARY 25: Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., listens during the Senate Armed Services hearing on U.S. policy in Iraq. Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., is at right. Republican and Democratic senators planned Thursday to resume their effort to merge two resolutions critical of President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq. Warner, who co-wrote one of the non-binding measures, showed no sign that he was ready to negotiate on its wording, suggesting the push to come up with a broadly supported rebuke of Bush's policy might falter. "I'm talking to senators all the time, but no negotiations," Warner said Wednesday of his bipartisan resolution. Warner's measure urges Bush to establish clear benchmarks to determine military and political progress in Iraq and calls on the president to keep U.S. forces out of the country's sectarian violence. Warner introduced his resolution Wednesday. Earlier, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the other resolution, a more strongly worded bipartisan measure co-authored by Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del. It declares that Bush's decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq "is not in the national interest of the United States." Witnesses at the Armed Services hearing were William J. Perry , of the Hoover Institution and former secretary of Defense, Dennis B. Ross, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former adviser to presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and retired Gen. John M. Keane, former Armey vice chief of staff. (Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images)