Acknowledging that satisfactory progress has been made on fewer than half the benchmarks set by Congress, President Bush Thursday said more time was needed to improve security in Iraq to enable the government to make political progress. After nearly four years of the same message, a new strategy that removes U.S. troops from combat operations, enabling growing numbers of them to come home, and that relies on diplomacy rather than force is overdue.

The White House report found that satisfactory progress was being made in eight areas, such as providing Iraqi soldiers for the Baghdad security plan and protecting the rights of minority political parties. On critical areas such as increasing the number of Iraqi security forces able to operate independently, eliminating militia control of local security and ensuring Sunnis have access to government jobs, the progress was deemed unsatisfactory.

The progress report on 18 benchmarks was required by legislation sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins, John Warner and Ben Nelson and attached to a war spending bill earlier this year.

Rather than wait for a required second report this fall, a growing number of Republican senators, including Maine’s, have diverged from the president’s strategy of giving a troop surge more time to work. Sen. Olympia Snowe was the second Republican to support an amendment to require that the withdrawal of U.S. troops begin within 120 days with an end to combat in Iraq by April 30, 2008. It is the first time she has supported a mandatory troop withdrawal. The plan is sponsored by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed.

“We are past nonbinding resolutions but we are also not abandoning the mission in Iraq,” Sen. Snowe said. “We cannot continue to keep our brave military men and women on the front lines if the Iraqi government is unwilling to put national interests above their own sectarian interests.”

Sen. Collins co-authored with Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson an amendment that would immediately end U.S. troop involvement in combat operations and limiting American soldiers to training Iraqi troops and securing the country’s borders. This would also result in American troops coming home. Sen. Collins supports another amendment, from Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar, that would require that U.S. policy follow the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which include a phased troop withdrawal and diplomacy with Iran and Syria.

Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and John Warner, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are reportedly looking for a middle ground approach.

As important as the language of any amendment is its chance of passage. Any of the amendments need 60 votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster and 67 to override a veto. President Bush has said he will veto any bill that sets a deadline for withdrawing troops. It would be difficult for him to veto an amendment that codifies the Iraq Study Group recommendations since he endorsed them when they were released last year.

The task now for Sens. Snowe, Collins and other Republicans who oppose the president’s Iraq stalling-for-progress policy is to convince their party colleagues that redeploying and withdrawing U.S. troops is a better approach.