US:President George Bush will review his strategy in Iraq today with senior national security advisers, amid signs of an impending confrontation with Democrats over a proposal to temporarily increase US troop levels in Iraq.
The administration has acknowledged that sending up to 30,000 extra troops for a temporary "surge" is among the options the president is considering as he prepares to announce his new strategy next month.
Democratic senator Joseph Biden, who will chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is sworn in next week, has flatly rejected the proposal.
"I totally oppose the surging of additional troops into Baghdad and I think it is contrary to the overwhelming body of informed opinion, both people inside the administration and outside the administration," he said.
Mr Biden said his committee will hold hearings on Iraq from January 9th, questioning current and former administration officials for three days each week for three weeks.
Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has agreed to testify before the panel but not until after Mr Bush unveils his new strategy.
The White House has not set a date for Mr Bush's speech on Iraq but he is expected to deliver it before the state of the union address on January 23rd. Today's meeting at the president's Texas ranch will include vice-president Dick Cheney, defence secretary Robert Gates, Dr Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
Mr Bush said last week he wanted to expand the size of the army and Marine Corps to ease the strain on ground forces, a move seen by some military experts as laying the groundwork for an announcement early next month of a planned surge in ground forces in Iraq.
The idea of a temporary increase in US troop numbers in Iraq has some high-profile supporters in Congress, including Republican senator John McCain and independent Democrat Joseph Lieberman. Mr Biden said however that a surge was unlikely to boost efforts to end sectarian violence in Baghdad.
The administration has appeared dismissive of two key recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which reported this month - direct talks on Iraq with Syria and Iran, and the withdrawal of most US combat troops by 2008.
Three Democratic senators - Connecticut's Chris Dodd, Florida's Bill Nelson and former presidential candidate John Kerry - flew to Damascus earlier this month to meet Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter became the first Republican senator to follow suit.
The war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular among voters and Mr Biden suggested Republicans had more to lose than Democrats in the 2008 elections if the president did not dramatically change course. "Every one of those Republican senators - and there's 21 of them up for re-election - knows that that is likely to spell his or her doom," he said.
