WASHINGTON, July 7: With a daily departure of Republican lawmakers from the Bush camp, desertions over President Bush’s Iraq policy is rapidly turning from a trickle to a deluge.

On Saturday, two more Republican senators – Lamar Alexander and Judd Gregg – went public with their dissatisfaction with Mr Bush’s Iraq war strategy.

Senator Gregg, who led the charge earlier this year against Democratic efforts to prevent Mr Bush from sending more troops to Iraq, conceded: “We don’t seem to be making a lot of progress.”

Senator Alexander, another Republican stalwart, is calling for a new approach. “It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy.”

Reports from Capitol Hill, the seat of the US legislature, indicate that Republican lawmakers are uniting around a proposal calling for a major reduction in US troops in Iraq by March 2008.

In the Senate, six Republicans are backing legislation that implements the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The legislation — introduced by Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado and Senator Alexander – seeks redeployment of US troops as early as the first quarter of next year.

In the House, 33 Republicans support a similar legislation. “We expect more to join us,” Senator Alexander said.

The Republican dissent, brewing quietly within the party, made headlines two weeks ago when Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, delivered an earnest plea for change from the floor of the Senate.

Senator George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, expressed similar doubts in a letter he sent to President Bush a day after Mr Lugar’s speech. Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, openly praised Mr Lugar for speaking out.”

New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, a senator for more than three decades, was the third Republican elder statesman to publicly turn against Mr Bush’s troop ‘surge’ policy within 10 days.

Last December, Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, yet another Republican, said supporting the administration’s war policy was ‘absurd.’

The United States now has about 157,000 troops in Iraq, and the death toll has climbed above 3,500. The White House, however, is urging Congress “to be patient,” and to give Mr Bush’s strategy more time to work.