Democrats Aim to Block Funds for Plan

Tauscher said Democratic policy must "satisfy the American people that we're putting a speed bump in front of the president that will actually hold," adding: "The White House is used to doing business on their own, but they're realizing things have changed. This is vastly different."

House Democrats also expect to introduce soon a resolution of disapproval for Bush's new policy but have moved farther than Senate Democrats toward an outright funding confrontation with the White House.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called Tuesday for the administration to ask for renewed authorization from Congress before sending additional troops to Iraq. "I don't believe there's a single member of the U.S. Senate that would have voted for the authorization bill in October 2002 if they thought the authorization was going to commit American forces to be involved in a civil war," he said yesterday.

But Democratic strategists said that, at this point, there is limited support for the Kennedy proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who with Pelosi co-signed a letter to the president last week urging him not to send more troops to Iraq, has begun meetings with other senior senators, including Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to develop specific responses to Bush's new policy.

Antiwar activists continued to press congressional Democrats to block Bush's plans. "The bottom line is that when voters elected the Democrats, they did that on the promise that the Democrats would lead the country out of the war," said Eli Pariser, director of the MoveOn political action committee. "Democrats need to fulfill on that promise, and they're going to."

Staff writer Shailagh Murray contributed to this report.