WASHINGTON - North Dakota's three Democratic members of Congress say they are skeptical of President Bush's expected plan to send more troops to Iraq.

A first wave of additional U.S. troops will go into Iraq before the end of the month under President Bush's new war plan, a senior defense official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The plan was criticized by many congressional Democrats.

Up to 20,000 troops will be put on alert and will be prepared to deploy under the president's plan, but the increase in forces on the ground will be gradual, said the official, who requested anonymity because the plans have not yet been announced.

All three members of the North Dakota delegation said they want to see the details of Bush's plan, to be announced Wednesday night, before making a final judgment. But all said the United States is increasingly entangled in a civil war that will be hard to resolve.

"I just think it's a mistake to have United States forces trying to referee that kind of a dispute," said Sen. Kent Conrad. "Our role should be to train Iraqi forces that can take over the defense of their own country. They are going to have to fight for their own democracy, just as our forefathers did for ours."

In 2002, Conrad voted against authorizing force in Iraq. His North Dakota colleagues, Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, voted to authorize force.

In a floor speech Tuesday, Dorgan said Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, had testified in November that the number of troops deployed to Iraq should not increase or decrease sharply.

"I am very skeptical about this issue of deciding that we're going to surge additional troops into Iraq even as the top military commander in Iraq says that should not be done," Dorgan said.

Pomeroy said the missing element in resolving the war is a commitment to peace among warring factions.

"I've been to Iraq four times and I'm convinced that the United States can't bring peace when the parties of Iraq don't want it," he said.

Pomeroy said he views Bush's expected plan "less as a surge than an open-ended escalation of the troop commitment we have had there."

He said his vote to authorize force was based on the thought that Iraq was a direct threat to the United States.

"An imminent threat to the United States was a fact driving my vote to authorize force against Saddam Hussein," Pomeroy said. "Those facts have not been borne out."