The US House of Representatives on Friday issued a rebuke to George W. Bush’s Iraq strategy in the first concrete demonstration of opposition to the war by Capitol Hill since the US-led invasion almost four years ago.

The 246-182 vote was non-binding and will have no impact on Mr Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500 extra troops in addition to the 131,000 already there as part of his “new way forward in Iraq” unveiled last month...

Democratic leaders plan to tread a fine line in the next few weeks that will involve taking further steps to oppose Mr Bush’s prosecution of the war - such as attaching conditions to future congressional funding of military operations - while also making it clear they will continue to support American troops in the field.

“The Democratic party is highly conscious of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the American public opposed the Vietnam war and yet it was the Democrats who emerged as the losers politically,” said Mark Schmitt at the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank in Washington...

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