WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress plan to confront administration officials at a series of hearings this week, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

    Democrats had hoped to emphasize their domestic agenda in the opening weeks of Congress but have concluded that Iraq will share top billing, the report said.

    Pushed by House members who want a quick, tough response to the Iraq strategy President George W. Bush is expected to announce this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has backed off from her initial assertion that nothing should detract attention from the legislation she hopes to pass in the first 100 hours of House debate.

    On Thursday, Democrats will call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to defend the war-strategy shift Bush will outline in a nationally televised speech.

    A House Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned for Jan. 19, was abruptly moved to this Thursday after consulting Pelosi. And leadership aides went to work on a response to Bush's speech that they hope will be delivered on national television after the president's appearance, the report said.

    In the Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings Wednesday on the current situation in Iraq, then grill Rice on the president's plan on Thursday. Gates and Pace will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday.

    Democrats had hope that the headlines and evening news would be dominated by votes in Congress to bolster homeland security, raise the minimum wage, fund stem cell research and grant the federal government authority to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare.

    But with Bush's long-awaited policy address tentatively set for midweek, those much-touted bills are not likely to lead the news, and the Democratic leaders have been forced to change their tactics, the report said.

    Democratic leaders, at the same time, have vowed to use their powers of spending and policy oversight to challenge Bush's expected proposal this week, as part of broad revision of Iraq strategy, to boost U.S. military forces in the country by as many as 20,000 troops.

    Calling Iraq a nation in "complete chaos," Pelosi and other Democrats cast the anticipated Bush plan as an escalation of the Iraq war that goes against the advice of senior U.S. commanders, rather than the significant change of course sought by American voters, and that as a result they would treat the plan and new funding request with strong skepticism, the Post reported.