Americans Say U.S. Is Losing War

Republicans and Democrats in Washington have come to no such consensus. Rather than adopting the proposed solutions, Democrats prefer to leave it to Bush to find a way out of a mess they say he created. Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been guarded in discussing the Iraq Study Group report, saying only that there may be some sort of formal resolution endorsing it.

Jim Manley, spokesman for incoming Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said: "I can't name you one member who has wholeheartedly embraced each and every one of the recommendations. From the leadership's perspective, there's much to support. But we're putting pressure on the president to come up with a way forward."

That reflects divisions among Democrats, whose leaders are wary of alienating antiwar liberals. "The recommendations I don't believe match the findings," said Tom Andrews, a former congressman who heads Win Without War. "The situation demands much more action than embedding additional trainers." Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), head of the "Out of Iraq" caucus in the House, said troops need to come home faster. "I don't think 2008 is soon enough," she said. "Too long, too costly, too many lives."

Underlying Democratic reticence, according to some, are two other factors: wariness of alienating Israel, which has rejected the panel's ideas about making peace with Syria, and distrust of Baker because of his role helping Bush during the contested 2000 presidential election.

Leon E. Panetta, a Democratic panel member, said his party's coolness may help bring Bush around: "If they were jumping up or down for it or against it, that would affect how the president views it. What they need to do is give the president some room to review this."

Not all political reaction has been negative. Some congressional Republicans are eager to resolve the issue before 2008 and have urged the White House not to reject the report. "It seems to me that what Baker-Hamilton provides us is a chance to kind of reset the table and get a bipartisan buy-in . . . to what we can do to move forward in Iraq and get our troops out of harm's way and out of the sectarian violence," Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted Dec. 7-11 by telephone among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. The margin of sampling error is three percentage points.

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.