A US Senate committee has rejected President Bush's plan to send extra troops to Iraq, passing the measure to the full Senate for a vote next week.

The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed Mr Bush's policy as "not in the national interest" in a 12-9 vote.

It comes a day after the president gave his State of the Union address asking Congress to give it "a chance to work".

The vote is non-binding, but supporters hope it may lead Mr Bush to reconsider.

The resolution opposes Mr Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, the majority of them to violence-hit Baghdad, in an effort to improve security and end sectarian clashes.

An advance guard of 3,200 troops arrived in Baghdad on Sunday.

'The grinder'

The resolution was proposed earlier this month by three leading senators who said the plan was not in US interests, urging an early transfer of security to Iraqi leaders.

The three senators were Democrats Joseph Biden and Carl Levin, and Republican Chuck Hagel, a long-standing critic of the war.

"We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder," said Senator Hagel, the only Republican to support the resolution.

Senator Biden, the panel's chairman, said the legislation was "not an attempt to embarrass the president".

"It's an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq," he said.

Before the hearing Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed the objections, saying: "It won't stop us, and it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops."

The full Senate is scheduled to debate the measure next week, and Mr Biden has said he is willing to negotiate changes in hope of attracting support from more Republicans.

Democrats in the House of Representatives intend to hold a vote shortly after the Senate.

Photo caption

Senator Biden (left) Hagel and Levin (right) announce their resolution