WASHINGTON, Jan 8: US President George W. Bush will announce his new policy on Iraq on Wednesday, the White House said Monday. The new plan would be announced in a nationally-televised speech at 9pm EST, which was expected to include an increase of up to 20,000 US troops to Iraq.

Some military officials, familiar with the discussions, say Mr Bush could initially dispatch 8,000 to 10,000 new troops to Baghdad, and possibly the Anbar province, and leave himself the option of sending more lately if security doesn't improve.

Mr Bush is also considering allocating more money for the Commander's Emergency Response Programme, set up in 2003 to give field commanders money to solve local problems quickly — and show American compassion and good will. The programme was allocated $753 million in the 2006 budget year. The president also has expressed interest in shoring up job-training programmes for Iraqis and the work being done by State Department teams that coordinate local reconstruction efforts in Iraq, according to those familiar with discussions.

Bush's new policy for Iraq will include establishing a set of benchmarks that the government there will be expected to reach in an effort to stabilise the country in the face of heightening sectarian tensions.

Officials say the list of benchmarks are ones President Bush discussed with US-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during a two-hour secure video teleconference last Thursday.

Mr Maliki is expected to outline them in a speech to his country on Tuesday.

The benchmarks were first published in Monday editions of The New York Times and will include rallying more Sunnis and Baath Party members to be part of the political process and working on a structure for distributing the country's oil revenue equally.The officials said the US would hold Iraq to the timetables set, but would not go into any specific details on what any possible penalties could be.

More than 3,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the US-led forces invaded the country in March 2003.

Democratic leaders in the Congress, meanwhile, plan to hold a series of hearings this week on Iraq confronting administration officials.

Democrats, who regained control of both chambers of the Congress in last November's elections, had hoped to emphasize their domestic agenda in the opening weeks of Congress but have concluded that Iraq will share top billing, The Washington Post reported.

On Thursday, Democrats will call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to defend Bush's war-strategy shift. A House Armed Services Committee hearing with Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned for Jan 19, was abruptly moved to this Thursday.

In the Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings on Wednesday on the current situation in Iraq, and grill Ms Rice on the president's plan on Thursday. Gates and Pace will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday. Democratic leaders have also vowed to use their powers of spending and policy oversight to challenge President Bush's expected proposal for boosting US military forces in the country.

Calling Iraq a nation in "complete chaos," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats cast the anticipated Bush plan as an escalation of the Iraq war that goes against the advice of senior US commanders, rather than the significant change of course sought by American voters, and that as a result they would treat the plan -- and new funding request -- with strong scepticism, the Post reported.