After Congress’ vote to provide war funding without conditions, Democrats appear ready to set aside for 2008 their failed legislative effort to change President Bush’s Iraq policy.

The House voted, 272-142, on Wednesday to clear an omnibus fiscal 2008 spending bill (HR 2764) including an unrestricted $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through next spring.

The additional war funding, backed by Republicans and moderate Democrats, represents the latest in a series of defeats for anti-war Democrats who had vowed that Bush would get no more war funding unless it was linked to a change in policy.

Lawmakers agreed Wednesday that the Democrats’ prospects for forcing Bush to change course in Iraq next year appear no better.

By all estimates, the majority party will still lack sufficient votes — particularly in the Senate — to bring U.S. troops home sooner than Bush plans.

And even if they had the votes to do so, Democrats said they would be hesitant to cut off money for the troops in an attempt to force the president’s hand.

As a result, Democrats predicted limited legislative assaults on Bush’s war policies, including, at most, increased congressional oversight and moves to ban torture of prisoners and increase the time troops spend at home between combat deployments.

“We need to think about other ways to try to control this policy,” said Jim McGovern, D-Mass., an outspoken war critic.

Although Democrats took control of both chambers after the 2006 elections, they repeatedly fell short of the 60 votes in the Senate that would have allowed them to push through their war policy measures. The two-thirds majorities needed to override presidential vetoes of measures challenging Bush on Iraq were well out of reach in both chambers.

“We can’t overcome the president’s obstinance and the Senate’s indifference when it comes to this,” said John B. Larson of Connecticut, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

And Democrats acknowledged that even if they had large majorities in both chambers, some members of their party would not support using the power of the purse to force a change of direction in Iraq.

“There are always going to be Democrats who oppose the war but won’t support removing the funding,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

Improved security in Iraq also undercut Democratic efforts to force a troop withdrawal, some lawmakers said. The September testimony to congressional committees by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, helped prevent what Democratic leaders had predicted would be a rash of Republican defections on the war.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that Democrats will turn to increased oversight of the war effort next year as a way of increasing the public’s awareness that despite a decrease in violence in Iraq this year, political stability there remains as distant as ever.

“The biggest obstacle to peace is the intransigence of the Iraqi government. A good deal of focus will be on that,” she said.

Analyzing the Democrats’ string of setbacks on Iraq this year, lawmakers in both parties said the majority party suffered self-inflicted wounds.

Democrats were unable to achieve unity in their ranks in either chamber. In the House on Wednesday, for example, 78 Democrats provided the winning margin for the addition of Iraq money to the year-end spending package.

Durbin said he never tried to deliver a solid Democratic vote against war funding because some senators were unlikely to submit to leadership pressure.

Russ Feingold, D-Wis., an outspoken Senate war critic, said the lack of Democratic unity sabotaged efforts to put pressure on Republicans. “Until Democrats stand together, it’s going to be difficult to draw Republicans to our side,” he said.

Some moderate Republicans complained that majority Democrats passed up opportunities to compromise with those in the GOP uneasy with administration policy.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, one of the few Republicans who consistently voted this year for troop withdrawal timelines, said Democrats erred in focusing on that objective rather than political reconciliation standards for Iraq that would have appealed to the handful of Republicans who might have been swayed to join the anti-war camp during the weeks after the 2006 elections.

“A decision was made to draw those hard lines on cloture votes,” Snowe said. “Instead of drawing partisan lines at that time, they really should have mobilized as much support as possible on a non-binding resolution at the outset.” With presidential politics dominating 2008, bipartisanship on the war will be even more difficult, she said.

Durbin rejected that criticism.

“Virtually all the compromises [Republicans] suggested would not have changed any of the policy in Iraq, so it would have been a cover for them to say ‘We voted for change,’ ” Durbin said. “But at the end of the day, nothing would have happened.”

Edward Epstein contributed to this story.