Congress challenges war, but with words only

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers quizzed top U.S. commanders Thursday. Senators repudiated President Bush on a war-spending bill. Barack Obama visited the Capitol to accuse presidential rival John McCain of "partisan posturing" on Iraq.

When the noise and dust settled, what was accomplished? Almost nothing in terms of forcing Bush to change his policies in the five-year-old conflict, despite the mandate that voters seemed to hand Democrats in 2006.

"At the end of the day, we'll get funding for the war without any strings attached," said a smiling Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, minutes after he and his Republican ally McCain suffered a stinging defeat on a war-spending bill that Bush vows to veto.

Democratic leaders, even in the afterglow of their surprising win, couldn't argue.

"This isn't the time to debate the policy of the war in Iraq," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters when asked whether anything Congress was doing would change conditions in the war zone.

Seventeen months after taking control of Congress, Democrats still can barely dent Bush's Iraq strategy. Their repeated failures infuriate and bewilder anti-war groups that helped some of them to election -- and have been instrumental in pushing Obama past Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the party's presidential primaries.

But such groups, as well as their pro-war counterparts, are losing leverage these days. For one thing, Iraq is substantially less violent than it was a year ago, causing voters to focus more on the economy, and leading many policymakers to rethink the wisdom of a rapid U.S. withdrawal.

At the same time, Obama and McCain are turning their attention to centrist voters who will decide the November election.

Obama still vows to withdraw U.S. combat troops in 16 months or less. But top aides quietly point to escape clauses he has sprinkled into documents and interviews. Numerous outside observers think he is likely, if elected, to take a more deliberate approach to disengagement.

He would face "extraordinary pressure" from anti-war groups to withdraw troops rapidly, said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a policy group with centrist-Democratic leanings. "But I think Obama will have a lot of latitude" to resist, because he would enter the White House as a powerful "transformational president," Bennett said.

McCain recently suggested 2013 as a possible end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, where he envisions victory without detailing how to achieve it. Many saw that date as a switch from his earlier denouncements of timelines, although McCain insisted it was not.

Majorities not enough

In Congress, the biggest impediment to forcing changes has not changed in 17 months. The Demo-crats' House and Senate majorities are not big enough to produce the supermajorities needed to override Bush's vetoes of efforts to force him to wind down the war.

Recently, such bids have lost much of their steam. The Senate voted 63-34 Thursday to reject yet another Democratic bid to urge Bush to begin withdrawing combat troops.

That leaves lawmakers to rant and joust on more peripheral issues. They include Iraq veterans' benefits, which brought Obama and his presidential ambitions to the Senate chamber Thursday.

Against Bush's wishes, the Senate easily approved a $165 billion war-funding bill, which includes numerous domestic projects and billions of dollars for extended unemployment benefits and veterans' college aid. Still, Bush has enough support in Congress to sustain the veto that he promises he'll order because of the nonmilitary spending items, which critics call pork.