WASHINGTON — The antiwar rhetoric from congressional Democrats remained as sharp as ever Tuesday as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus came to Capitol Hill to testify about progress in Iraq.
But underscoring the partisan deadlock over the war, even some staunch critics acknowledged that the drive for legislation to withdraw U.S. troops was in effect over.
Democrats who have struggled since becoming the majority last year to force a pullout now point to the fall election as the only hope for changing U.S. policy in Iraq.
"It is clear that we do not have the votes," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who was among the first Senate Democrats to push for a binding troop withdrawal timeline. "The American people are going to speak in November."
Kerry and other Democrats have repeatedly failed over the last year to persuade more than a few Republicans, who can block legislation in the Senate with a filibuster, to break with President Bush and force him to bring troops home.
Not every antiwar lawmaker has accepted the futility of insisting on a congressionally mandated withdrawal.
"We should not be waiting around," said Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), one of the leading advocates of a pullout. "We must redeploy our troops to break the paralysis that now grips U.S. strategy in the region."
In the House, leaders of the influential Out of Iraq Caucus, who last year helped push congressional Democrats to back a timeline for withdrawing troops, are, like Feingold, also threatening to oppose any additional funding for the war.
The House is scheduled to consider Bush's next war funding request in May.
But with many lawmakers looking to focus on legislation to provide additional aid to Americans hard-hit by the faltering economy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has thus far refused to endorse a new legislative fight over money for military operations in Iraq.
And last week, Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and 12 other senior Democrats did not even mention a mandatory troop withdrawal in a two-page letter they sent to Bush calling for a new strategy in Iraq.
Instead, the Democratic leaders urged the president to intensify efforts to encourage reconciliation among Iraq's political leaders and to focus on broader initiatives to deal with instability in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.
