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US Senate panel rejects Iraq plan
Breaking news
A US Senate committee has rejected President Bush's plan to send extra troops to Iraq, passing the measure to the full Senate for a vote next week.
The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed Mr Bush's policy as "not in the national interest" in a 12-9 vote.
It comes a day after the president gave his State of the Union address asking Congress to give it "a chance to work".
The vote is non-binding, but supporters hope it may lead Mr Bush to reconsider.
The resolution opposes Mr Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, the majority of them to violence-hit Baghdad, in an effort to improve security and end sectarian clashes.
The resolution was proposed earlier this month by three leading senators who said the plan was not in US interests, urging an early transfer of security to Iraqi leaders.
The three senators were Democrats Joseph Biden and Carl Levin, and Republican Chuck Hagel, a long-standing critic of the war.
CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash says there are other similar measures working their way through Congress but this is the first to come to a vote.
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from the
BBC