US lawmakers on Sunday wrestled with how to change the course of the war in Iraq, with top Republicans calling for more troops while Democrats demanded a prompt withdrawal of US forces.
On another violent day which saw at least 54 more people killed in Iraq and the kidnapping of a Shiite deputy minister, US leaders debated the best course of action to eventually end US involvement there.
In Washington Republican Senator John McCain, long a critic of Iraq war policy, said the United States could be successful in Iraq if it increased the number of troops there, currently around 144,000.
A beefed-up deployment, backing Iraqi forces, would take control of insurgent strongholds and "arrest the momentum of the death squads," McCain told ABC News.
"Can we still win? Yes, I believe we can," he said.
Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on CBS news, agreed with McCain.
"It is obvious to me we don't have enough troops in Iraq to provide the security necessary to create a democracy from the ashes of a dictatorship," he said.
But Senator Carl Levin, who will become chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee in the wake of the Democrats' victory in legislative elections on November 7, renewed his call for a troop withdrawal to begin in coming months.
"We must tell the Iraqis that we would begin -- starting in four to six months -- a phased reduction of our troops," he told CNN.
"Because if you don't do that, they're going to continue to have the false assumption that we are there in some kind of an open-ended way. And it is that assumption on their part which takes them off the hook," he said.
Levin said his plan would give the Iraqis the opportunity to reach a political settlement that could quell the violence.
Democratic Senator Joe Biden, set to take over the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in The Washington Post Sunday that Iraq needs a federal system, more jobs for men otherwise attracted to joining the violent militias, and support for a political settlement from Iraq's neighbours.
"Doing all those things would enable most of our troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2007, with a small residual force to contend with concentrations of terrorists," he wrote.
For his part, McCain said he would not support a troop withdrawal unless the situation there becomes hopeless.
But he acknowledged that increasing US troop strength in Iraq would put a strain on the military.
"Absolutely, it would be terrible," he said. "We're going to be asking people to go back again and again, maybe even extend their tours. But there's only one thing worse, and that is defeat."
A top Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday he will propose legislation to start up a military draft, saying that the current volunteer army is overwhelmed by troop deployments in Iraq.
"I don't see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft. I think to do so is hypocritical," said Representative Charles Rangel, long a critic of US military policy in Iraq.
But former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned against dropping out completely, saying Iraq's collapse would lead to disastrous consequences in the Middle East.
Kissinger, who has advised Republicans including US President George W. Bush and former president Richard Nixon, told the BBC in an interview that a clear military victory was not possible for coalition forces and called for an international conference to thrash out the country's future.
"We have to move at some early point to some international definition of what a legitimate outcome is -- something that can be supported by the surrounding states and by ourselves and our allies," Kissinger said.