For the third time in five months, the House repudiated President Bush’s stewardship of the Iraq War, passing a measure that would require the withdrawal of most U.S. forces by next spring.

But there was only incremental change in the amount of support in the chamber for a withdrawal deadline, indicating that Democrats were still far from being able to force Bush’s hand.

By a vote Thursday of 223-201, most Democrats and a handful of Republicans supported the bill (HR 2956), which would require U.S. forces in Iraq to be reduced to a “limited presence” by April 1, 2008. The measure, by Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., would require the military drawdown to begin in 120 days.

The measure was unlikely to become law because Senate Republicans, who have enough votes to block floor action, were not expected to allow a vote on a similar A-measure. The White House warned on Thursday that Bush would veto the measure if it reached his desk, and neither chamber has enough votes for an override.

Still, the bill’s passage added to the growing political pressure on Bush to find a new way forward in Iraq. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would continue to hold such votes.

“We will repeat that judgment legislatively as often as necessary, hopefully with an increasing level of support from our Republican colleagues, until pressure from the American people causes the president to change his mind and his policies,” she said.

Four Republicans voted for the measure: Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland, Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri and John J. “Jimmy” Duncan Jr. of Tennessee. Ten Democrats opposed it.

The vote tally reflected gains in both Republican and Democratic support. In March, when the House passed the fiscal 2007 war supplemental spending measure (HR 1591), which included a requirement for withdrawal by August 2008, only two GOP lawmakers — Gilchrest and Jones — voted to support it. Fourteen Democrats voted against the supplemental, evenly split between conservatives who thought the bill went too far in calling for a withdrawal and liberals who rejected the bill because it continued to fund the war. Bush later vetoed the measure, after the House and Senate adopted a conference report with a weaker withdrawal “goal” of March 2008.

In Thursday’s vote, most of the Democratic opponents were conservatives. The only anti-war liberal to oppose the measure was presidential contender Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio.

Other anti-war liberals threw their support behind the measure.

“The president has dug us deep into a hole in Iraq,” Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said in a statement. “By setting a clear timeline for the redeployment of United States troops, we are standing with the American people to stop the digging.”

Among the Democratic conservatives who opposed a withdrawal deadline in March but supported Skelton’s bill Thursday was Lincoln Davis of Tennessee.

“When I voted ‘no’ on the supplemental, we were talking about funding for our soldiers,” Davis said. “What this does is establish a policy to help change the direction in Iraq.”

But with the loss of only four Republicans, GOP leaders portrayed their caucus as unified in opposition to any withdrawal deadlines, despite recent signs that GOP support for Bush has begun to fray.

“To engage in this debate today is nothing more than a partisan political stunt,” said Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. “This is not leadership, this is negligence.”

But Emerson said the bill represented a third way between withdrawing from Iraq precipitously and staying indefinitely.

“The middle ground requires that we make plans now to redeploy our forces from Iraq in the visible future A-— not tomorrow, but eventually and in stages,” she said.

As the House debate began, the White House reported mixed progress by Iraqis toward reducing violence and stabilizing their society.

In an interim report mandated by the fiscal 2007 Iraq War supplemental spending bill (PL 110-28), the administration found a “complex and extremely challenging” security environment, an “uneven” economic situation and little sign of progress toward political benchmarks that Bush and Congress had laid down.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, must provide Congress with a fuller report on progress in Iraq by Sept. 15, and Bush has appealed for patience until that report is delivered.

Bush, speaking at a news conference Thursday, again urged the nation to give his “surge” strategy more time to work and scolded Congress for meddling in the way he is waging the war.

“Congress has got all the right to appropriate money,” Bush added. “But the idea of telling our military how to conduct operations, for example, or how to deal with troop strength, I don’t think it makes sense.”

Meanwhile, Senate leaders spent the day trading claims that the interim report either boosted the case for staying the course or for redeploying.

“The report confirmed what many had suspected: the war in Iraq is heading in a dangerous direction. It’s well past time for a change of course in Iraq,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Reid backs a Democratic amendment, by Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, that would require a redeployment of U.S. troops by the end of April 2008, one month later than in the House bill. Like the House version, it would mandate a start to the redeployment within 120 days. That measure is expected to come to the floor for consideration next week.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said the Democratic strategy is to present the vote on the Levin-Reed amendment as the key vote on Iraq policy.

“There will be one clear, unequivocal vote,” Durbin said. “This will be a moment for those Republican senators who question the policy of this administration to show that they really want change.”

Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, who supports the Levin-Reed amendment, said Bush’s report would serve as a lever to bring people on board in support of the measure.

“It further underscores the depth of concern that many of us have about the military and political strategy in Iraq,” she said.

By contrast, most Republican senators touted the military progress claimed in the interim report, along with assertions of political progress at the local level.

Republicans also stressed their view that now was the worst time to abandon the war effort. “The worst mistake would be to change strategy at any time when it is beginning to show dividends,” said Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who leads a bipartisan coalition of 13 senators backing an amendment to write the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group into law, said that Reid, who opposes the measure, promised him a vote on the language next week. “I think people will have a hard time not voting for it,” Salazar said.

Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a cosponsor of the amendment, said the House vote had earned them no new cosponsors for the measure. He downplayed expectations that the amendment might win a supermajority of 60 supporters, saying, “That would be hard to do with both the president and the majority leader opposed to it.”

Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he and senior Armed Services Committee Republican John W. Warner of Virginia could introduce their own Iraq amendment as soon as Friday. Lugar said the amendment would contain no binding language and would serve more as a resolution than a bill.

“As a procedural matter, the president cannot be forced by the Congress to do anything, really,” he said.

The amendment will include some of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, but it would go further in recommending diplomatic solutions, Lugar said. He suggested that Congress could provide guidance to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who Bush announced would travel to the Middle East in August.

“We’re suggesting that while the president is waiting for the [Petraeus] report, he and his staff could be doing some planning” for whatever decisions they do make in September— including possible troop withdrawals, Lugar said. “Any of these things are going to have ramifications.”

The Senate will vote Friday morning on an amendment by Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., that would double the bounty offered by the U.S. government for Osama bin Laden to $50 million and require quarterly reports to Congress on U.S. progress in pursuing al Qaeda.

First posted July 12, 2007 10:32 p.m.