WASHINGTON — Three years after President Bush declared beneath a "mission accomplished" banner that major combat had ended in Iraq, a leading Senate Democrat on Monday suggested the creation of separate, autonomous regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to counter continuing ethnic and religious violence.
The White House quickly denounced the idea. Bush said in a White House appearance that Iraq faced "more tough days ahead," but had reached "a turning point" with its new, full-term government.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, presented his plan as an alternative to the options of a rapid withdrawal or a continuing war.
The "third way" Biden proposed would give each of the major ethnic and religious groups in Iraq broad authority to run local affairs.
The central government in Baghdad would be given limited, but specific, responsibilities for border defense, foreign policy, oil production and revenues.
The plan draws on ideas used to ease the bloody conflict among Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s.
Regional governments -- run by Kurds in the north; Sunni Muslims in the central region, excluding Baghdad; and Shiite Muslims in the south -- "would be responsible for administering their own regions," the senator said. Baghdad, according to Biden's strategy, would be a federal zone.
Such a course would represent a sharp detour from Bush administration policy. The president and the rest of the U.S. foreign policy hierarchy have persistently pressured Iraqi leaders to establish a unified government and to resist pressures that the Bush administration fears could splinter the country and bring further instability that insurgents could exploit.
The White House's speedy rejection of the idea suggested that the plan would face steep odds. But it reflected a new effort to position Democrats between those calling for an immediate pullout from Iraq and the president's policy, which polls show is increasingly unpopular and threatens to become a factor in the November midterm elections.
Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who visited Baghdad together last week for the first top-level meetings with newly chosen government leaders.
