With Senate debate stalled on President Bush’s proposed troop increase in Iraq, House Democrats decided to forge ahead with their own resolution next week, aides said Monday evening.

House leaders decided to move ahead with their own resolution after Senate Republicans blocked a full-fledged debate on Iraq in that chamber earlier in the day.

While the wording has not been finalized, Democrats are planning to introduce a measure condemning Bush’s decision to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. Aides said they will probably shop around the existing Senate proposals to determine which one can be used as a vehicle that will garner the most House support.

The move was a departure from earlier strategy declared by House Democrats, who had planned to wait and see which measure the Senate debated before writing their own resolution.

But with the Senate debate stalled and the Presidents Day recess fast approaching, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and other Democratic leaders decided to move ahead on their own.

“Pelosi is committed to doing something next week, no matter what,” a Democratic leadership aide said. “I don’t think we want to go home without a vote.”

The House adjourns for a weeklong recess Feb. 16.

By a vote of 49-47, the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to proceed to consideration of a measure (S 470) favored by Democratic leaders that “disagrees” with the troop surge but vows not to cut off funds for U.S. forces now in Iraq. The vote split largely along party lines.

While the vote went Republicans leaders’ way — they argued that the Democrats’ planned procedure for considering an Iraq resolution was unfair — Democrats hammered GOP senators before and after the vote for preventing the start of the debate.

“The American people deserve to know where every member of Congress stands on the president’s plan to escalate the war,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “They can either have the debate now or in November 2008.”

For now, it is unclear whether the debate will occur any time soon. If the impasse is not resolved quickly, Reid has threatened to turn to a fiscal 2007 continuing appropriations package (H J Res 20) the Senate must pass by Feb. 15, when the current stopgap funding measure for most of the government expires.

Senate GOP leaders, who oppose the Democrat-favored resolution (S Con Res 7) sponsored by John W. Warner, R-Va., and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., are insisting on a procedural agreement that would give equal treatment to it and two alternatives. For procedural reasons, Reid temporarily turned the non-binding resolution into a bill sponsored by Levin alone.

The first resolution Republican leaders want a vote on is sponsored by John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on Armed Services. It takes a more supportive view of Bush’s troop increase, while outlining 11 specific benchmarks that the Iraqi government has supported in the past.

The second, which has become the real sticking point, is a resolution sponsored by Judd Gregg, R-N.H., that would promise continued support for troop funding. Although similar language is in the Warner-Levin resolution, Republicans want a vote on that pledge in a stand-alone form.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he will allow a vote on Warner-Levin only if he can get a vote on Gregg’s proposal. Reid, concerned that the Gregg proposal might win adoption rather than the Warner-Levin plan, reportedly will allow a vote on Gregg only if Warner’s measure first receives a majority of Senate votes.

McConnell’s response: Each resolution should face the same threshold: 60 votes, the number needed to choke off a filibuster.

Gregg said he thinks there are 60 votes — or close to it — for his resolution.

Reid said he had offered up-or-down votes on the three resolutions, as well as a fourth stating that the Senate does not support the surge but insists that the troops deploying to Iraq receive the equipment they need. “That, too, was rejected,” he said.

“The Republican leadership can’t take yes for an answer,” Reid said, charging that they were “driven by a desire to provide political cover for President Bush.”

Both McConnell and Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the only Iraq votes that matter will occur on Bush’s $100 billion fiscal 2007 supplemental spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was formally submitted to Congress on Monday, along with a request for another $145 billion in fiscal 2008 war spending.

Tim Starks, Martin Kady II, Jonathan Allen and Matthew Spieler contributed to this story.