House Republicans engineered an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for US troops and force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from a conflict that is in its fourth year.

The debate culminates Friday, when the House votes on a nonbinding resolution that praises US troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.

US soldiers stand guard at the Abu Ghraib prison compound, shortly before 200 prisoners were freed under a national reconciliation plan announced by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last week to free a total of 2,500 inmates, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, June 15, 2006. [AP]

"When our freedom is challenged, Americans do not run," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

"This war is a failed policy of the Bush administration," countered House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California. "We need a new direction in Iraq."

Democrats decried the debate and vote as a politically motivated sham, and some said they would vote against the measure even though Republicans could then try to claim that Democrats don't support US troops. A few Republicans who have publicly expressed misgivings about the war also were expected to oppose the resolution.

The House vote comes one day after the Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end by shelving a proposal that would allow "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in Iraq in 2007.

That vote was 93-6, but Democrats criticized the GOP maneuver that led to the vote as political gamesmanship and promised further debate next week on a proposal to start redeploying troops this year.

Congress erupted in debate on the Iraq war four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of both the House and Senate, and as Bush was trying to rebuild waning public support for the conflict.

The administration was so determined to get out its message that the Pentagon distributed a highly unusual 74-page "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war, which began in March 2003.

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