Top U.S. Democrats have set out to propose legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by fall 2008.

The conditions will be described as tentative until presented to the Democratic rank and file. The proposal will be added to a legislation that is bound to give the Bush administration the $100 billion it demanded to continue fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, AP reported.

The proposal, coupled with the stinging rhetoric from Democrat leaders in the U.S. Congress, is seen as a catalyst for an outpouring of rage in the most direct of challenges against the Bush administration's war policies posed by the Democrat-controlled Congress.

The legislation is expected on the floor of the House of Representative before the end of March.

Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office has announced plans for a news conference Thursday morning to unveil the measure.

There have been talks that Democrat John Murtha, who currently holds the chairmanship of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Pentagon's budget, will join the news conference.

Murtha is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The former Marine wants to stop the U.S. President George W. Bush from adding an additional 21,500 forces to 139,000 soldiers already in Iraq.

Democrats have proposed that Pentagon be required to attest that U.S. forces are properly trained, equipped and rested before being dispatched to Iraq which can prove to be difficult considering how thinly stretched the U.S. military has become after four years of fighting in Iraq.

The proposal does however allow Bush to waive some of the conditions following Murtha's proposal which did not allow the possibility of waiver. A number of Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president since obliging Bush to publicly admit that U.S. forces being sent into Iraq lacked the necessary training, could prove to be a potentially damaging admission.

The officials who described the details were speaking on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak before the measure is presented to the rank and file.

Meanwhile, Missouri Republican Whip Roy Blunt informed reporters that about 17 Republicans might end up voting with the Democrats when the proposal reaches the House floor.

Seventeen House Republicans voted for a nonbinding resolution the House passed last month opposing the increase of U.S. forces in Iraq. Blunt also stated that other House Republicans could begin losing their patience with the U.S. president's Iraq policies.

SO/AVA