Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked Monday a full-floor debate on a nonbinding resolution opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase American troop levels in Iraq.

A motion to proceed with the debate and vote on a bipartisan compromise measure, co-sponsored by Republican Senator John Warner and Carl Levin, a Democrat, failed with 49 favoring the debate and 47 opposing.

Under Senate rules, it needed 60 votes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that senators also be allowed to consider two Republican alternatives as well as the Levin-Warner measure which expressed disagreement with Bush's plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

"We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people," Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

Reid said the U.S. people did not support "escalation."

"Last November, voters made it clear they want a change of course, not more of the same," he said.

An alternative measure, by Republican Senator Judd Gregg, said Congress should neither cut nor eliminate funding for troops in the field, but took no position on the war or the president's decision to deploy additional forces.

"We should not take action once soldiers have been sent into the field and are putting their lives at risk," said Gregg.

More than 3,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in Iraq since the war started in March 2003.

Bush's decision to boost troops presence in Iraq has been strongly challenged at the Democrat-controlled Congress, even including some Republicans lawmakers, as the opposition of the Americans to the war is mounting.

The proposal of the debate came as a token that the Democrats have for the first time launched direct challenge to Bush's Iraqi policy at the Congress since they took the majority.

Source: Xinhua