Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used a visit to Baghdad on Sunday to warn US support for Iraq was "not open ended" and to defend Congress for voting to tie new funds to a timetabled troop withdrawal.
"We can't continue to stay in Iraq the way we are," Hagel told reporters at the US embassy in Baghdad during his fifth visit to the war-ravaged country.
"It never was intended to be an open-ended commitment."
But Hagel, a 2008 Republican presidential contender and a Vietnam veteran, expressed optimism that a "compromise" can be reached soon between Congress and President George W. Bush on funding the war.
"I believe we will get an agreement between Congress and the president," Hagel said.
Both chambers of Congress have adopted measures funding the war, but imposed deadlines limiting the US combat mission in Iraq to 2008.
Bush, who has insisted that he will veto any bill with timetables, is due to receive members of Congress on Wednesday to tell them he has no intention of negotiating any deadline for a troop pullout from Iraq.
Hagel cautiously painted a positive picture of Iraq, which is engulfed in a brutal insurgent and sectarian conflict, forcing 80,000 US and Iraqi troops to patrol the capital's streets, but stressed its future depended on Iraqis.
"Progress has been made. But it is important that the Iraqi people now carry forward the assistance that the American government has given. The future of Iraq will be determined by the Iraqi people," he said.
Democrat Representative Joe Sestak from Pennsylvania who was accompanying Hagel, further stressed that a "political solution" was the key to success in Iraq rather than a military one.
Sestak also justified the Congress decision to set conditions for withdrawing the troops along with sanctioning new funds for the war in Iraq.
"I think it is appropriate to have a Congress say in this. We as the US have invested heavily in Iraq," he said.
"It is up to the Iraqi people to determine their future. Money will be forthcoming but with some conditions."
When asked their view on the security situation in Baghdad, where the US military is upping troop deployments, a smiling Hagel said: "We did no shopping while we were here," alluding to recent comments made Senator John McCain which came under flak from the media.
"Iraq still has great challenges and security is still an issue. We will continue to deal with it... coalition forces and Americans, but ultimately it is an Iraqi responsibility," Hagel said.
On April 1, McCain and three fellow Republican Congressmen said they shopped and chatted to Iraqis in a Baghdad market, which has been constantly bombed, during their visit to Iraq and said that the US troop surge was paying off.
