U.S. Democratic party Senator Barack Obama(D-IL) (L) confers with fellow Democrats Jim Webb (D-VA) (C) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) at the start of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting on Iraq resolution, on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 24, 2007. Democrats took the first step toward a wartime repudiation of President Bush on Wednesday, convening a Senate committee to endorse legislation declaring that the deployment of additional troops to Iraq is "not in the national interest." REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)