U.S. troops should begin withdrawing from Iraq this year, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner said Wednesday, but the U.S. government should not set a timetable for removing all of its military presence from the Middle Eastern country.

The former Virginia governor said the war in Iraq has cost the United States too much financially, on the international stage and in military casualties.

“We have to get out of Iraq,” said Warner, who made some of the first policy pronouncements of his campaign during his appearance at Nathans of Georgetown’s weekly question-and-answer session. “We have to do it right because getting out without a plan is as bad as getting in without a plan.”

The former governor is the only declared candidate to replace retiring Sen. John Warner, who is not a relative.

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Former Gov. Jim Gilmore and U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, of Fairfax County, were expected to battle for the GOP nomination. Davis, however, is upset the state’s Republican leaders decided to choose the nominee at a convention instead of a primary. The congressman, according to The Hill newspaper, told a Tuesday gathering at The National Press Club that he may run for Senate in 2012 instead.

“There are other races, this isn’t the only shot,” the paper reported Davis said. “You’ve got a very vulnerable guy [Democrat Jim Webb] sitting there in the other Senate seat right now who may or may not run in four years.”

Warner, a multimillionaire, recently disclosed raising $1.1 million last month within 17 days of announcing his candidacy, and several public opinion polls show him way ahead of potential Republican foes.

Davis has about $1 million in his bank account but raised only $223,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30. Gilmore has no money in a campaign account because he has been raising funds for GOP legislative candidates.

“Mark Warner has $200 million already, so what’s another $1 million?” said Gilmore spokesman Dick Leggitt. “He has never been in a real campaign and has never had a real opponent. He will be in a real campaign this time.”

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com