The trickle of Republican rebellion against President Bush’s Iraq policy turned into a stream at the weekend when two more previously loyal senators joined the swelling ranks of critics.

Lamar Alexander said that “it should be clear to the President that there needs to be a new strategy”, while Judd Gregg called for a “clear blueprint for how we were going to draw down”.

Although they stopped short of backing the Democratic proposals for a fixed timetable of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, their comments came before a week in which the Senate is once again debating funding for the war and the military will deliver an interim progress report on Mr Bush’s “surge strategy”.

The dissent has been led by senior figures including Richard Lugar and John Warner, the Republican leaders – or “ranking members” – on the Senate foreign and armed forces committees. Mr Lugar yesterday used a TV interview to explain that his public intervention had been intended as a “reaching out to the President”. He suggested that remaining opportunities for a centrist, “bipartisan consensus” on Iraq were fast disappearing before presidential elections next year in which Democrats are being pushed by activists to call for an immediate withdrawal of troops.

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Along with other Republicans who have spoken out in recent days, such as George Voinovich and Pete Domenici, Mr Lugar appears to be advocating measures similar to those of last year’s Iraq Study Group report. This proposed shifting American troops away from the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia so that a reduced force could concentrate on counter-terrorism and support functions.

“We have to be thoughtful about the safest route for our forces out of Iraq,” Mr Lugar said, adding that most of the 160,000 US troops stationed in the country could be “redeployed by the middle part of next year”.

Moderate Republicans fear that Mr Bush’s apparent determination to fight on will lead to a panic pullout that could set off a wider conflict across the Middle East. But the White House is urging them to hold the line at least until September, when General David Petraeus will present his assessment of the effectiveness of the 28,000-troop “surge”.

An interim report this week is expected to tacitly acknowledge that the Iraqi Government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals that Mr Bush set for it in January. The American military is already facing problems of overstretch, with the Pentagon making troops serve longer in battle zones – and more often – as it tries to sustain the surge.

At the same time, there is concern in Washington over the prospect of Nouri al-Maliki’s Government collapsing. Mowafak al-Rubaie, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, told an interview with CNN yesterday that “after Maliki there is going to be the hurricane in Iraq . . . ”.

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