WASHINGTON, July 25: The US House of Representatives on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to bar permanent military bases in Iraq, in the latest bid by Democrats to trim White House options on the war.

Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee, who wrote the bill, said it made clear the United States did not intend to keep an “open-ended” presence in Iraq and had no designs on the war-torn nation's oil riches.

“Putting Congress on record with this clear statement helps take the targets off our troops' backs and it support our goals of handing over responsibility for security and public safety to Iraqi forces,” she said.

“We may disagree on many things about Iraq, but I hope we can agree that an endless occupation is not the answer,” Lee said.

Democrats saw the bill as an attempt to ensure that the administration cannot keep a decades-long troop garrison in Iraq, similar to the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in South Korea since the Korean war.

The bill passed by 399 votes to 24 as most Republicans also backed it, despite many Bush supporters deriding the vote as purely symbolic.

The Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, said Democrats should stop playing politics, as no US military base abroad represented an “occupation” but was the product of an agreement with a host nation.

“Instead of wasting time with meaningless stunts and undermining our troops overseas through harmful rhetoric, members of Congress should be united and focused on preventing Al Qaeda from establishing permanent bases in Iraq,” he said.

Democrats have become increasingly frustrated at their inability to force Bush's hand on Iraq, despite grabbing control of both chambers of Congress last November, in an election partly dictated by public anger over the war.

Last week, in the Senate, Democrats failed to overcome blocking manoeuvres by Bush's allies, as a thinning line of Republican support held firm against their latest drive to get most US troops home by the end of next April.—AFP