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WASHINGTON - A second Republican signed onto a Senate resolution on Wednesday opposing President Bush's 21,500-troop buildup in Iraq, setting a marker for a major clash between the White House and Congress over the unpopular war.

US Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton from New York holds a press conference on Iraq on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Clinton, fresh from a tour of Iraq, blasted US President George W. Bush's plan, saying it would not stem the raging sectarian violence. [AFP]

Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate from Maine, said she would support a nonbinding resolution that would put the Senate on record as saying the US commitment in Iraq can be sustained only with support from the American public and Congress.

Snowe's decision to join the effort came as the White House and GOP leaders struggled to keep Republicans from endorsing the resolution, and raised questions about how many more defections there might be.

"Now is time for the Congress to make its voice heard on a policy that has such significant implications for the nation, the Middle East and the world," Snowe said in a written statement.

Earlier, Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and potential 2008 presidential candidate, joined Democrats at a news conference announcing the resolution.

"I will do everything I can to stop the president's policy as he outlined it Wednesday night," Hagel said. "I think it is dangerously irresponsible."

Even as skeptical Republicans were summoned to private meetings with Bush and national security adviser Stephen Hadley at the White House, Bush's aides made clear that the Capitol Hill challenge would be met aggressively by the administration.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said resolutions passed by Congress will not affect Bush's decision-making.

"The president has obligations as a commander in chief," he said. "And he will go ahead and execute them."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., a chief author of the Senate resolution, said it says "we do not support increased troops, deeper military involvement" and calls for shifting the mission of US troops from combat to training, counterterrorism and protecting Iraq's territorial integrity.

He said it also calls for "the greater engagement of other countries in the region in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq."

The resolution does not call for a withdrawal of troops or threaten funding of military operations, as many Democrats have suggested. Instead, the legislation says the US should transfer responsibility to the Iraqis "under an appropriately expedited timeline," though it is not specific.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told reporters that she is considering supporting the resolution and said she believed it heads in the right direction.

"I want to make sure it's something I can support," said Snowe, who has been adamantly opposed to the increase in troops.

The group planned to introduce the resolution Wednesday, with a review by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 24, one day after Bush delivers his State of the Union address.

Hagel's agreement to help Democrats champion the resolution amounts to a setback to the administration and to Bush, who has argued vehemently that some 21,500 additional US troops are needed to help the Iraqi government calm sectarian violence in Baghdad and Anbar province.

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