Congressional Democrats, who largely owe their control of both chambers to the public’s dissatisfaction with the Iraq War, are set to send President Bush a war spending bill without a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Still, even though the bill (HR 2206) does not do nearly as much to curb the war as they would like, Democrats made modest inroads by including benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet. And the White House will get a bill that includes spending for a variety of Democratic domestic priorities, as well as an increase in the minimum wage.

The exclusion of a withdrawal timetable, as well as a lack of troop readiness standards or binding consequences for failing to meet the benchmarks, were sore points for many Democrats who voted against the war funding. But after Bush made clear that he would not accept further restrictions on the war, Democratic leaders had little choice but to relent.

The Senate cleared the $120 billion measure by an 80-14 vote Thursday night. Earlier, the House held two votes on the bill. It adopted, 280-142, an amendment to provide the military funding, with 140 Democrats and two Republicans — John J. “Jimmy” Duncan Jr. of Tennessee and Ron Paul of Texas — in opposition.

The House also overwhelmingly adopted, 348-73, an amendment to provide $22.2 billion in other spending, most of which was not requested by the White House.

But Democrats pledged not to let the war policy issue rest. “This debate will go on,” vowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who voted against the war funding amendment.

The rule for consideration of the measure the House adopted Thursday sets up a vote later this year on redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq by June 30, 2008. And Pelosi promised a vote to deauthorize the use of force in Iraq.

Indeed, the war will be debated on the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the fiscal 2008 defense spending measure and the fiscal 2008 war supplemental.

“Clearly, Congress is not turning from the debate on Iraq; on the contrary, we are just beginning this debate,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

September is widely considered a key month in the Iraq War debate, with Gen. David H. Petraeus scheduled to report to Congress on the progress of the war. On Thursday, Bush acknowledged that setting up such a date for a report might lead to a bloody August in Iraq.

“[I]t could make August a tough month because, you see, what they’re going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can to try to influence the debate here at home,” Bush said at a news conference.

Democrats believe that as the war goes on, support for it will continue to erode. In a poll released Thursday by The New York Times and CBS, 61 percent of respondents said the United States should never have taken military action against Iraq. Democrats hope for more Republican defectors on future votes.

But on Thursday, Republicans remained mostly united in supporting the war funding. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio expressed relief that Congress had finally hammered out a bill that was acceptable to the president.

“We sent them there on a mission,” Boehner said of U.S. troops. “And yet for the last three and a half months, we have had a debate going on here that has undermined their effort, lowered their morale and clearly sent the wrong message to our allies and to our enemies.”

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, said the end result of the struggle between Congress and the White House over war funding could have been predicted 60 days ago. “All of this effort, that could have been spent on a real agenda, was lost on the melodrama of Iraq,” Blunt said.

Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised to send a bill to Bush before Memorial Day or stay in session until they did so. That decision made for long days and last-minute tinkering on the bill to incorporate some changes dictated by the White House.

Although Republicans grumbled about not having a chance to review the final text until Thursday morning, House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., said they should direct their fire elsewhere. “We made a number of changes in response to White House requests as late as 10 o’clock last night,” he said.

Among the last-minute deletions were provisions allowing proceeds from the sale of holiday ornaments by the Senate Gift Shop to be transferred to the Senate’s Employee Child Care Center. Democratic aides said other deletions from the previous version of the war spending bill included funds for pandemic flu preparations and language seeking to bar federal pre-emption of state and local laws on chemical plant security.

The total funding for the bill is $120 billion, about $4 billion less than provided in the version (HR 1591) Bush vetoed May 1. Negotiators made small cuts to programs including agriculture disaster relief and wildfire suppression. They also eliminated money for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Still, some domestic items remained untouched, such as funding for a county payments program and a children’s health insurance program. The bill includes an increase in the federal minimum wage over two years — to $7.25 an hour, from $5.15 — along with a $4.8 billion package of business tax cuts that would be fully offset.

The latest proposal also makes small reductions to several military accounts, paring funding for Pentagon spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from $95.5 billion to $94.7 billion.

The measure includes several technical changes to last year’s pension overhaul (PL 109-280), the most significant of which was requested by American and Continental airlines. The air carriers will now get 17 years to fund their pension plans instead of 10 years. They also would be able to use a different interest-rate calculation that would require them to add less money to their plans than current law requires.

The changes would put them on the same footing as Delta and Northwest airlines, which had both filed for bankruptcy protection.

Lawmakers from Texas, where American and Continental are based, backed the provision.

The new version of the war spending bill includes $871 million for emergency road repairs, $188 million more than the previous war supplemental. It would offset those funds by rescinding an equal amount of unobligated state highway funds.

During debate on the earlier version of the bill, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., objected to a similar provision that would have taken back $683 million in formula-driven highway funding authorization.

While Democrats are eager to revive the Iraq War debate, Republicans also expressed some distress with the course of the war. The 18 benchmarks for the Iraqi government ultimately included in the bill were written by Republican Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia. Warner’s proposal requires that the president provide progress reports to Congress in July and September.

On Thursday, Warner said the mandated reports might lead the president to entertain Iraq Study Group proposals for conducting the war. But he also advised patience. “Let it rest, and wait until July,” he said.

But many Democrats are tired of waiting. In response to Warner’s statement, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said, “You have to ask yourself, in your heart of hearts, if the situation in Iraq is likely to get better.”

When asked her opinion, Feinstein replied, “I don’t think its going to get better any time soon.”

Richard Rubin, Kathleen Hunter, Jonathan Allen and Michael Teitelbaum contributed to this story.