PORTLAND – Rep. Tom Allen, joined by a retired Army general, said Monday that the fighting in Iraq has become a sectarian civil war and the Senate should join the House in approving legislation to bring U.S. troops home.

Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, former president of the National Defense University, likened the Iraq situation to that of Vietnam at the end of 1967. He said President Lyndon Johnson realized then that the war was unwinnable but deployed 25,000 additional troops “basically because we didn’t know what else to do.”

“Now it’s clear that the only way we can stop the war in Iraq, which is proceeding in much the same direction, is for the Congress to act,” said Gard, who has been speaking around the country in opposition to the war.

Democrat Allen and Gard agreed that a political solution to the war was needed and that it was beyond the U.S. military’s ability to produce a positive outcome. Gard cited polls showing that most Iraqis want Americans to leave.

On Friday, the House passed a bill that would fund the Iraq war this year but would require that combat troops return home before September 2008. The Senate was poised to begin debate on a war spending bill that would set a nonbinding goal of March 31, 2008, for removal of combat troops.

Allen said that with the Senate so closely divided between the two parties, the move to change direction on Iraq is now in the hands of its Republican members.

“Failure of the Senate to join the House in taking action to end the war will only encourage the president to continue his misguided war without end,” Allen said. “But passage of this legislation will show the president and the American people that Congress will no longer give him a blank check for an indefinite occupation of Iraq.”

Gard expressed concern that Iraq was depleting the capabilities of America’s military at a time when the nation faces serious challenges elsewhere.

“This war has ripped apart the active Army and Marine Corps, as well as the National Guard and Reserves, who are no longer in a position to perform the emergency kinds of operations that may be necessary in this country,” he said.

“It took us 10 years to recover from Vietnam. We can’t afford to have to rebuild an Army and Marine Corps for 10 years given what’s happening in the world today,” Gard said. “Spending the vitality and the readiness of our armed force on a sideshow war of choice is irresponsible.”