And although the shift answers a clamor from the Democrats' restless left wing, advocates of the House and Senate proposals have settled on a course close to the centrist war plan offered last year by a bipartisan study panel.
The Iraq Study Group urged that combat troops be pulled back from Iraq by early 2008, but that other forces remain in the country to train local units, protect borders, provide logistics and intelligence support, and fight terrorism.
The Republicans and Democrats on the Iraq Study Group, and other private experts, believed that a U.S. troop contingent half the size of the current 141,000 could help control the chaos in Iraq and be politically acceptable in the United States.
The House Democrats would give the president two opportunities to stave off -- but not prevent -- a pullback of U.S. troops. But even to delay it, Bush would have to certify that the Iraqis are moving toward key "benchmarks," such as training their forces and striking needed political deals to build a new government.
It would be optimistic to expect the Iraqis to pass the tests. The State Department's senior advisor on Iraq, David M. Satterfield, reiterated Thursday that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki had far to go to complete the political deals needed for a crucial reconciliation among Iraq's warring sectarian groups.
Maliki promised U.S. officials last year that he would reach several of the key benchmarks by early this year. But their completion is still not in sight. And U.S. officials acknowledge that in any case, Maliki doesn't have complete control over the process.
Although the Democrats have shifted the battleground, it may soon shift again.
Administration officials and military commanders say they expect to have a sense by the end of the summer whether Bush's "surge" plan has succeeded in suppressing sectarian violence in Baghdad.
At that point, the debate is likely to intensify anew. If the surge has clearly failed, growing numbers of antiwar lawmakers will push for still-stronger steps to try to wind down U.S. participation.
But if Bush can argue that the increased troop commitment has succeeded -- even partially -- he may push to extend it, igniting a confrontation.
Some lawmakers may push to halt war funding. But given the public's reluctance to cut off support for troops, it may be more likely that Congress will pass stronger antiwar resolutions to build pressure on the White House.
Democrats "will keep groping toward a resolution that gets enough support to pass, that lays out markers and that makes a formal expression of Congress' sense that the policy is not working," said Norman J. Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
paul.richter@latimes.com
