US Senate eyes breakthrough in Iraq impasse - Yahoo! News

US Senate eyes breakthrough in Iraq impasse - Yahoo! News: "US Senate eyes breakthrough in Iraq impasse " by Stephen Collinson Sun May 13, 5:39 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Top US senators said Sunday a climax was in sight to intense bargaining over an Iraq war financing deal palatable to both President George W. Bush and anti-war Democrats. Time is running short to frame a bill before Congress's late-May recess, following weeks of invective over Democratic demands to start bringing troops home and Bush's refusal to accept a timetable for withdrawal. Early outlines of a deal emerged last week as Bush, under pressure from rising Republican disquiet over the war, signaled that it made sense to include military, security and political benchmarks for the Iraqi government. This would be the first time since lawmakers authorized the invasion of Iraq in late 2002 that Bush would let Congress join in defining the terms of the conflict. "I think benchmarks will be a part of the final package that we get to the president for signature on the troop funding bill," Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), the Senate's top Republican, told CNN. He said he was working with the Senate's Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), to reconcile the bill with a House of Representatives version before Congress breaks up on May 25 for the week-long Memorial Day recess. McConnell added that there was "a growing sense of bipartisan frustration in the Senate over the lack of progress on the political side of the Iraqi government."