Wednesday, June 21 2006 11:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Leading Democrats in the US Senate have renewed their call for withdrawl of troops out of Iraq and asked the Bush administration to start the process by year end.

They also presented two plans for winding down US involvement in Iraq one to pull out US combat troops by July 2007 and another to begin withdrawing this year without a timetable for completion.

"Three and a half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent," Carl Levin, top-ranking Democrat in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He said President Bush should start withdrawing an unspecified number of troops this year and then inform Congress about the plan for the continued withdrawal.

With the November election politics written all over the proposals, Republicans branded the plans as nothing more than defeatist and indication of disarray within that party.

Levin's idea appears to have support from most Senate Democrats who are wary of going along with a strict timetable for withdrawal out of an apprehension that this could bring about a fuller and larger scale civil war in that country.

Democrats Kerry, joined by Russell Feingold, has come up with a variant of his earlier amendment which was rejected earlier. Now they are calling for a legislation that will have combat troops out of Iraq by July 2007.

The deadline Kerry and Feingold argue gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government and allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country.

Both Kerry and Feingold are Democrat potentials for the 2008 Presidential elections.