Warner challenges Frist over stalled defense measure

And the dispute illustrates how some of Frist's GOP colleagues have not hesitated to confront him in a year that has seen the Senate prove difficult to control.

The potential 2008 presidential candidate has faced several setbacks, some at the hands of his own rank and file, and now federal investigators are examining his sale of stock in a healthcare chain owned by his family.

At issue is the annual bill that sets Pentagon policy and plans its spending. Although Warner's committee passed the bill in May, the full Senate might not end up voting on it. Unlike other authorization bills, the defense bill has been passed for the past 40 years.

Warner, 78, with only one year left as Armed Services Committee chairman before having to step aside under Senate rules, doesn't want that streak broken on his watch.

''Sure as I'm standing on this floor right here, we're gonna have that bill up" for debate, the former Navy secretary vowed recently.

The stalemate began in July when Frist, a Tennessee Republican, who shepherds President Bush's agenda through the Senate by deciding which bills go to a vote, abruptly stopped debate on the bill. That avoided a high-profile fight over amendments, supported by Warner and sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that would restrict the Pentagon's handling of detainees in the war on terror.

The White House had threatened to veto the entire measure over the issue and sent Vice President Dick Cheney to Capitol Hill to press the administration's opposition.

Frist also was concerned that the extraordinary number of amendments proposed -- more than 200 -- could eat away at the time needed for other legislation. An aide said Frist hopes that the bill can be completed, but it must be done ''in a timely manner and with relevant amendments."

The majority leader has resisted scheduling a vote even as other Republican heavyweights bearing military credentials have lined up behind Warner.

Besides McCain, a former Vietnam War prisoner of war, they include Senator Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, an Air Force lawyer for 20 years, and Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee.