WASHINGTON, Feb 16: The US House of Representatives on Friday rejected President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and instead urged him to reconsider his strategy.

As many as 246 congressmen voted for a resolution opposing a surge in US troops while 182 voted against it.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate moved to send a unified congressional message against President Bush’s Iraq strategy, announcing plans to hold an anti-surge votes in the upper house on Saturday.

Also on Friday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, scheduled a closure vote -— which limits debate and moves the bill towards a vote on final passage -— on the anti-surge resolution debated in the House.

"The Republican-controlled Senate was silent on Iraq for four years," Mr Reid said. "We demand an up or down vote on the resolution the House is debating."

However, it would be more difficult for the Democrats to win a vote in the Senate where they do not have a clear majority. A more complicated bipartisan resolution has languished in the Senate for weeks.

Public support for the war has continued to decline since President Bush ordered the invasion in 2003. A majority of Americans — 53 per cent -- said the US should withdraw from Iraq, according to a poll by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

Thirty-five per cent of those questioned in the Feb 7-11 survey said the US should begin a gradual withdrawal from Iraq during the next year or two, while 16 per cent said it should be immediate.