U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid addresses Nevada leaders Tuesday night at the Legislature in Carson City, including Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki. Photo by The Associated Press

CARSON CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday his next move on the Iraq war will be to limit the president's war authority, but he will not support taking away funding for the war

Defunding the war, the Nevada Democrat said, "is no strategy. We believe ... troops, at whatever cost to our treasury, we must take care of. We're not about to leave our military in Iraq or Afghanistan or anyplace else without the equipment or materials they need. ... We're talking about a redeployment, not having all the troops come home tomorrow."

Reid spoke to a group of Nevada reporters and individually to the Review-Journal before addressing the Legislature on Tuesday evening.

He said Senate Democrats plan to have a conference call Friday to come to consensus on an amendment that would limit the authorization to go to war President Bush was given by the Senate in 2002. U.S. troops in Iraq should only be used for anti-terrorism operations, force protection and training Iraqis, Reid said.

He also called for an international conference including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iran on the Iraq conflict.

"We're an occupying force, and the solution to this must come from people who have a larger stake in the neighborhood," he said.

Reid is scheduled to give the introduction at today's Democratic presidential candidates' forum here.

With four of his Senate colleagues in the running for the nomination, the senator reiterated his determination to remain neutral.

He acknowledged that his son Rory Reid, a Clark County commissioner, put him in an awkward position over the weekend by announcing he would chair Sen. Hillary Clinton's Nevada effort and serve as an adviser to her campaign.

"I'm glad Rory cares enough to step out, but it doesn't change my opinion," Reid said. "I think it's obvious that he feels very strongly, or he wouldn't have done this. But for me, I work with Senator Clinton, Senator (Barack) Obama, Senator (Joe) Biden and Senator (Chris) Dodd every day, so it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to go to each one of them and say, 'My son's going to come out for Clinton tomorrow.'

"But I love my son. He's a wonderful boy."

Reid acknowledged to the Review-Journal that in choosing sides, his son violated the majority leader's edict to Nevada elected officials not to take sides in the caucus.

"That's how my edicts last, though, with my family," Reid said ruefully.

Asked whether Rory Reid's move might prompt other Nevada elected officials to violate Reid's wishes and take sides, he said he didn't know."

Reid criticized the Bush administration for the ouster of U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden, who was among several U.S. attorneys asked to leave by the attorney general late last year.

Bogden was told he was being asked to step down for performance reasons. But The Washington Post reported this week that the U.S. attorneys had run into political trouble and that most were also overseeing public corruption investigations.

"I hope I haven't heard the last of it," Reid said. "It's awful what they've done. ... Bogden is an example of what shouldn't happen. He had all positive reviews. Nobody ever told him he wasn't doing anything right, and it's the same with the other eight who got dumped, one of whom now has his job filled with one of (presidential adviser) Karl Rove's lieutenants."

The administration should have adhered to normal procedure by allowing judges to pick temporary replacements if some U.S. attorneys truly had to go, he said.

"Now, to have the attorney general's office dump these people for a farm team for Karl Rove's lieutenants, I guess, it's an awful thing," he said. The ousters appeared to have taken place solely, he said, because "Karl Rove's guy wanted a job. No, seriously."

As for reports that several of the ousted U.S. attorneys, possibly including Bogden, were in the middle of investigations of Republicans, Reid said, "We'll have to see what they have to say. I've heard two of the U.S. attorneys -- it could be total rumor, I don't know if there's anything to it -- that they were told to stop certain things they were doing."

Asked whether he thought the Bush administration was capable of such actions, he said, "I don't put a thing past Karl Rove."

Reid expressed confidence that U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., will return to the floor of the Senate.

Johnson was moved from a hospital to a rehabilitation facility Tuesday, two months after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

"Today we got great news," Reid said of the move. "He'll need no more angiograms. His brain is fine. He'll need some more speech therapy, he'll need some more physical therapy, but he's fine. He reads. He listens to people. He watched my speech on Iraq on Saturday."

Reid said he didn't know how Nevada could address the nearly $4 billion funding shortfall for transportation, in fact, he said he wasn't aware of it. But he said federal funding for road projects was also tight and needed to be addressed.

Reid declined to express an opinion on the performance thus far of Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican.

"I think that (former Gov.) Kenny Guinn was a very good governor," he said. "I hope that Gibbons turns out to be a good governor, but it's too early to tell."

In a 20-minute speech to legislators Tuesday evening, Reid waxed nostalgic, drawing a contrast between the sparsely populated Nevada he served as a one-term assemblyman in 1969 and the bustling, urban Nevada of today.

Reid pronounced the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain dead.

"Yucca Mountain, after 25 years, it's over. It's history," he said.

"They can keep spending money on it, but Yucca Mountain is not going to happen."