Donald Rumsfeld, the chief architect of the US strategy for the Iraq war, became the biggest casualty of the heavy defeat the Democrats inflicted on the Republicans in the mid-term congressional elections on Wednesday when President George W. Bush said it was time for “new leadership” at the Pentagon.

The Democrats also appeared to have scored another massive victory on Wednesday night after the NBC television news network and the Associated Press predicted that they had won control of the Senate with victory in Virginia, where Jim Webb had apparently defeated Republican incumbent George Allen.