WASHINGTON, June 20: Senate Democrats prepared on Tuesday to introduce legislation that would pull US troops out of Iraq within one year’s time. “What was promised to the American people to be a rather uncomplicated effort by America to rid Iraq of a dictator has turned out to be a war that has gone on for more than three years — with no end in sight,” US Senator Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor.

“This week, the Senate will have a chance to say to the Iraqi people that as of the middle of next year, this becomes your responsibility,” Durbin, the number-two Senate Democrat, said in a preview of the debate expected to take place on Wednesday or Thursday.

“We will give you 12 months — and more American lives and more American dollars — then Iraq, you have to stand up and defend yourself,” Durbin said of the legislation that would call for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by July 1, 2007.

“We have served notice to the Iraqis that their future has to be in their own hands,” Durbin said.

The Democrats’ legislation, which has no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate, is to be introduced as an amendment to a defence spending bill currently under debate.

One of the primary authors of the legislation, Senator John Kerry, told US television on Tuesday that 12 months is “more than enough time ... to do what has to be done to get our troops home, and to get the Iraqis standing up on their own.”

“America’s presence is part of what is lending to the insurgency itself. And if the Bush administration can’t understand that — can’t begin to move to address it — then our kids are being put at greater risk than they ought to be. And that is not the kind of leadership they deserve,” the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate said.

Kerry said that even if they were not bogged down battling Iraq’s intractable resistance, American troops would have their hands full dousing other hotspots around the globe.

“We’re doing worse in Afghanistan. We’ve got problems in Somalia. They just had explosions in Thailand. You’ve got a serious issue with Iran,” he said.—AFP