A group of U.S. Senate leaders on Wednesday agreed on the wording of a non-binding resolution against the White House's plan to send more troops to Iraq and will likely introduce it Thursday, CNN reported.

The sponsors include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin, both Democrats, and leading anti-war Republican senator Chuck Hagel, according to the report.

Another Republican senator is likely to join them, making it a more bipartisan bill.

The resolution will not come to a vote before U.S. President George W. Bush's State of the Union address next Tuesday.

But by introducing it to the Senate floor, Democratic leaders will give senators from both parties multiple opportunities to voice concerns about the president's policy.

Media reports said the Senate resolution will express opposition to the president's deployment of 21,500 additional troops, by declaring that Bush's new plan "is not in the national interest."

It will also put the Senate on record as saying the U.S. commitment in Iraq "can only be sustained" with popular support among the American public and in Congress.

Earlier in the day, Democratic senator Christopher J. Dodd introduced legislation to cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at roughly 130,000.

In another high-profile move, Democrats have decided to choose Senator James Webb, a Reagan administration Navy secretary who secured election victory last November on an anti-war push, to deliver the party's response to Bush's State of Union speech.

U.S. voters appear to be solidly behind the Senate's anti-war efforts. In a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of Americans said they oppose Bush's decision to increase U.S. troop strength in Iraq.

Bush announced his new Iraq plan on Jan. 10, saying he will send 21,500 additional troops to help control violence in that country.

Source: Xinhua