Republican misgivings over President Bush's new war strategy are increasingly dividing the GOP as the Senate moves toward a showdown over the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

Republican strategy had envisioned a single resolution that would allow Republican senators to express doubts about the plan without stating their outright opposition. Instead, Republicans appear to be balkanizing, with at least five GOP drafts now in play and more Republicans stating their reservations.

"We're all looking for a plan that will work," said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania. "The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops - it's a snowball in July. It's not going to work."

Vice President Dick Cheney and senior military officials attended a Republican policy lunch yesterday, which turned into a raucous debate about the various resolutions, according to a GOP leadership aide. Bush will meet with GOP senators Friday as the White House continues to try to tamp down opposition.

But Republican misgivings are not subsiding. "This war has been mishandled. No one doubts that mistakes have been made in Iraq," Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, long a supporter of Bush's war policy, told Adm. William Fallon at his confirmation hearing to become the top U.S. commander in the Middle East. "I have to tell you, this committee did not get candid assessments in the past, and I view that with deep regret."

Having chastised Democrats for failing to show unity on Iraq, Republican leaders have decided they need a resolution of their own when the Senate begins debate on nonbinding resolutions of opposition next week.

Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, pushed back against Bush's claim to be the "decision maker," saying the White House needs to accept Congress's role in shaping war policy.

"I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider," Specter said during a hearing on Congress' war powers. "The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."

Republican leaders had hoped to divide Senate opinion largely along party lines, allowing Bush to argue that any outright statement opposing his plan was politically motivated partisanship. A resolution by McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham demanding tough benchmarks for progress in Iraq was supposed to garner overwhelming Republican support, a more palatable alternative to language by Sen. John Warner, Republican of Virginia, that would state opposition to the troop buildup.

Instead, rival measures continue to proliferate. Sen. Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said he is circulating language that would forbid a cut-off of funding for troops in the field under any circumstance, similar to another proposal by Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson. Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, is shopping a measure that would demand the president's policies be given a chance to work while calling for the reversal of perceived war-related mistakes, such as the wholesale purging of Baath Party members from the government and the failure to ensure equal oil revenue sharing.

"Resolutions are flying like snowflakes around here," Specter said.

Meanwhile, the two camps promoting competing resolutions of opposition - one headed by Sens. Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Chuck Hagel, a Republican, and the other by Warner - have failed to come to agreement on common language that could win a clear majority .

"This isn't about party loyalty. This isn't about presidential politics. It's about policy," said an exasperated Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican who has been urging Warner to negotiate an agreement to meld his language with the Democratic-driven resolution approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "What America is desperately thirsting for is for the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives to come to terms with where we are in Iraq."

One group of ruminating Republicans is the 20 GOP senators who will face voters in 2008. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said she expected to support at least one of the measures, but that first, "I've got to study them all." Sen. John Sununu, a Republican from New Hampshire, where anti-war sentiment is strong, reiterated his concerns about a troop build-up even as he refused to commit to any one resolution.

The Warner measure has attracted at least three potentially vulnerable Republicans: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

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