The chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee signaled that Congress is likely to delay its consideration of President Bush’s new war spending request until early next year and instead would probably provide interim funding to tide over the Pentagon.

The estimated $50 billion to $75 billion interim spending, called a “bridge fund,” would be included in the final version of the Defense appropriations bill (HR 3222), which a House-Senate conference is expected to approve Nov. 1.

“I think you’ll see bridge funding,” said subcommittee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, on Oct. 23. “Because otherwise, what are you going to do?”

Inouye’s comments on the timing of Congress’ consideration of Bush’s $196.4 billion war spending request echoed remarks by House appropriators, virtually guaranteeing that both chambers are likely to sidetrack the funding proposal for several months.

When they take up the request next year, its course is not likely to be smooth. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that he hopes the Senate version will provide only a few months of funding and include language on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. House appropriators have made similar remarks.

Democrats’ plans to ration war funds and reintroduce so-far unsuccessful attempts to legislate troop withdrawals indicate that, after a moribund month, the Iraq War debate may be sputtering back to life.

On Oct. 22, when Bush submitted to Congress his updated fiscal 2008 war spending request, he warned Democrats he would fight back against such dilatory tactics.

“Congress should not go home for the holidays while our troops are still waiting for the funds they need,” he said.

The funding would add to the $610 billion Congress has appropriated since the Sept. 11 attacks for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for operations launched shortly after the attacks to protect military bases, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). As a result, the wars waged in the six years since 2001 have cost 90 percent of the inflation-adjusted amount appropriated for the 12-year Vietnam War, CRS reported.

Now, it is increasingly clear that neither chamber is likely to consider the next installment of spending for Iraq and Afghanistan anytime soon.

House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., and John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, have said they do not intend to write the supplemental war spending bill until next year. They also appeared likely to include a bridge fund to pay for the wars in the regular Defense spending bill, but Murtha says House leaders ultimately will decide whether to include a bridge fund.

The House Appropriations panel might try to include conditions on war policy in its own version of a new supplemental spending measure. It did so before by setting rules for readiness standards in the first fiscal 2007 supplemental bill (HR 1591), but Bush vetoed the measure in May. Congress subsequently sent Bush a funding measure containing no conditions, which he signed (PL 110-28).

Other than Inouye, Senate appropriators have not provided details on their approach to the new supplemental. Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has not confirmed that the supplemental will have to wait until 2008, nor whether, at that point, it will be a partial package or include withdrawal language. But he did not sound as if he were in a hurry.

“I plan to proceed very carefully,” he said in an Oct. 22 statement. “Every line-item will be scrutinized. Hearings will be held to determine the need for this spending request. Tough questions will be asked of this administration. There will be no blank checks.”

Levin said he and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, an Armed Services panel member and former Army captain, hope to convince Senate leaders and Appropriations Committee members to provide only a few months’ worth of war funding when the Senate takes up the new supplemental.

Moreover, Levin said he wants the bill to include guidance and directives on redeploying troops. “That would put some pressure on the president to have a timetable to move the process along with greater certainty,” he said.

Levin and Reed said they hope the next supplemental would require prompt redeployments and a change in the U.S. mission to one focused more on support of Iraqi forces and less on direct combat. It would, they anticipated, set a goal, not a requirement, for the withdrawal of most troops in nine months.

Last month, the Senate voted down, 47-47, a proposal by Levin and Reed that would have set nine months as a firm requirement for completing the process. Since then, Levin has tried unsuccessfully to persuade more Republicans to support a compromise making the nine months a goal rather than a mandate.

But Levin said it might prove easier to pass a funding bill that contains redeployment language written by the Appropriations Committee than to pass such language as a floor amendment.

“We can’t get it added to a bill, but if it comes from committee, it would then have a chance of staying in the bill,” he said.

David Clarke and Chuck Conlon contributed to this story.