WASHINGTON — Senators of both parties yesterday said President Bush should put more pressure on Iraq’s government to disarm and disband the militias that are fueling sectarian violence in the country.

Mr. Bush said in a recorded interview on ABC’s “This Week” that he expects American troops will still be in Iraq when he leaves office in 2009. Asked if he can foresee circumstances in which all American troops would be withdrawn before then, he answered: “No, I cannot.”

Senators Lugar of Indiana, Warner of Virginia, both Republicans, and Senators Biden of Delaware and Levin of Michigan, both Democrats, agreed that forcing Prime Minister al-Maliki to confront the militias and craft a political compromise among warring Sunni and Shiite factions is the only way to quell the fighting, which has worsened over the past two months. In a joint appearance on the “Fox News Sunday” program, they differed on how to accomplish that goal.

“We have no other course but to give him our confidence and our support,” the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Warner, said of Mr. Maliki. The head of the Foreign Relations panel, Mr. Lugar, called him “probably the best horse” for America to back in Iraq.

The senior Democrat on Foreign Relations, Mr. Biden, said America needs a “radical change” in policy, and the top Democrat on Armed Services, Mr. Levin, argued that the Iraqi government would respond only to the threat of an American troop withdrawal.

The surge of violence has made October one of the deadliest months for American military forces in Iraq since the conflict began in March 2003. Mr. Bush conferred yesterday in Washington with his top military commanders about American strategy amid what polls show is the American public’s growing disapproval of the war.

The New York Times reported that the administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government that for the first time would set milestones for progress, such as disarming militias and meeting economic goals.