By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; 2:13 AM

WASHINGTON -- Senate votes reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with President Bush's war policies in Iraq present a dilemma for GOP House leaders who tend to toe the administration line on defense issues.

The Senate on Tuesday rejected a Democratic call for the administration to issue a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. Instead, the GOP-led chamber inserted into its defense authorization bill an alternative proposal that prods the president to outline a strategy for "the successful completion of the mission."

Approved on a 98-0 vote, the Senate defense bill also includes provisions that would restrict the techniques used to interrogate foreign terrorism suspects and ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of anyone in U.S. custody. Those sections have drawn a veto threat from the White House.

In addition, the Senate bill contains language allowing detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to appeal to a federal court their status at enemy combatants and sentences handed down by military tribunals.

The House version of the bill does not contain the Iraq language and the provisions on the detention, interrogation or prosecution of terrorism suspects, arguably the most contentious issues in the voluminous Senate bill.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, promised a thorough review of the Senate proposals.

"We'll take a look at how the provisions mesh with existing law and we'll attempt to shape a bill that does the right things in protecting our troops and, at the same time, ensuring that detainees are treated appropriately," Hunter said Tuesday.

Hunter has been a staunch supporter of the Bush administration on the war. The House GOP leadership typically sides with the Pentagon and has indicated its opposition to the Senate-passed detainee policies, setting up a potential fight between the two chambers.

House and Senate negotiators are to meet in the coming weeks to try to work out differences in the bills, which set defense policy and authorize spending, but don't have to be passed. Separate bills actually appropriate the money.

"It is important that we succeed in Iraq ... and we're going to," Bush said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. "The only way that we won't succeed is if we lose our nerve and the terrorists are able to drive us out of Iraq by killing innocent lives."

The White House called the Senate legislation a positive signal because it was not a call for premature withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The measure simply reaffirms what the administration already has been doing in terms of sending progress reports to Congress and working to train Iraqi security forces, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said in Japan where he was traveling with Bush.

The Senate bill includes provisions that, taken together, mark an effort by the Senate to rein in some of the wide authority lawmakers gave Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

On Iraq, Senate Republicans defeated a Democratic measure calling for a timetable. Moments later, the Senate voted 79-19 in favor of a Republican alternative that urged that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty," with Iraqi forces taking the lead in providing security to create the conditions for the phased withdrawal of United States forces.

The maneuvering on Iraq showed a willingness by Senate Republicans to question the White House _ although carefully _ on a war that's growing increasingly unpopular with Americans. Polls show Bush's popularity has tumbled in part because of public frustration over Iraq, a war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 American troops.

That left Republicans seeking a balance, working to fend off a frontal attack by Democrats while calling in the White House to do more.

The Iraq section in the Senate bill directs the administration to "explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq" and to provide reports on U.S. foreign policy and military operations in Iraq every three months until all U.S. combat brigades have been withdrawn.

In rejecting a timetable for troop withdrawal, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he feared such language could "set up a fragile situation, particularly on the eve of another election on December 15."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., argued that the U.S. should begin "a substantial and continuing draw down of U.S. forces" after the Iraqi elections. "There is widespread recognition that our overwhelming military presence is inflaming the insurgency," he said.

In a mixed bag for the president, the Senate also voted to endorse the Bush administration's military procedures for detaining and prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But that provision also would allow the detainees to appeal their detention status and punishments to a federal appeals court in Washington.

That avenue would take the place of the one tool the Supreme Court gave detainees in 2004 to fight the legality of their detentions _ the right to file habeas corpus petitions in any federal court.

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