WASHINGTON (AP):

Senate Republicans scuttled a Democratic proposal ordering U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq in a showdown yesterday that capped an all-night debate on the war.

The 52-47 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate under Senate rules. It was a sound defeat for Democrats who say the U.S. military campaign, in its fifth year and requiring 158,000 troops, cannot tame the sectarian violence in Iraq.

"We have to get us out of a middle of a civil war," said Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee and is a 2008 presidential candidate. He said a political solution must be found "so when we leave Iraq, we don't just send our children home, we don't have to send our grandchildren back."