U.S. Senate Demands Regular Iraq Reports

The senate, which is controlled by President George W. Bush's Republican Party, voted 79 to 19 to demand the reports. But senators rejected a motion put forward by the Democrats to demand that the president submit a plan and a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

Speaking in Japan this morning, Bush told reporters he saw the Senate action as positive because senators rejected a withdrawal timetable.

Bush has argued that setting a timetable for pulling out the nearly 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq would encourage insurgents.

(AP/Reuters/AFP)

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