By Michael Abramowitz and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 12, 2007

The White House and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to meet next Wednesday to discuss the stalemated war funding bill -- but only after a day of dueling statements that left prospects for bipartisan cooperation remote. At one point, officials at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue could not even agree on whether they had agreed to have a meeting.

The dance started Tuesday, when President Bush invited congressional leaders to the White House to discuss the stalemate over a war funding measure. Even in reaching out to Democrats, Bush made clear he was not budging from his demand for a "clean" spending bill without timetables for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq that the Senate and House are proposing.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) almost immediately indicated they would not attend such a meeting because Bush was setting, in their view, "preconditions."

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino told reporters yesterday that she found that posture "perplexing." She said Reid's office told the White House on Tuesday afternoon that the majority leader would attend a meeting explicitly billed as a forum to discuss the Iraq funding bill.

Not so, insisted Reid spokesman Jim Manley. Reid thought the session was another in a regular series of bicameral meetings with Bush to discuss a range of subjects.

Later yesterday, Reid offered his own invitation for the White House to come to Capitol Hill for a meeting with Senate leaders about the spending bill. At that point, he said he was still considering whether to accept the president's invitation.

"If it's a regular bipartisan, bicameral meeting, of course I'll go to that," he told reporters. But he suggested he would not attend "if he's calling us down there to tell us what he's going to do, and there's no discussion allowed."

A few hours later, Reid and Pelosi issued a statement indicating they would be at the White House next Wednesday. "We have been disappointed with the President's decision to avoid a serious, substantive discussion with Congress on Iraq," they said. "We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to change course."

Democrats, meanwhile, are making little progress reconciling differences between House and Senate versions of the war funding bill, senior party aides said. Both packages include provisions to end combat troop operations in Iraq by next year.

But the Senate's March 31, 2008, date is a goal, not a deadline -- although it does require troops to begin returning within four months. The House bill, shaped by a large faction of antiwar liberals, offers less flexibility. Leaders are expected to demand a firm date, which would prompt a veto.

Some Republicans and moderate Democrats are hoping that common ground may be found in a series of benchmarks for the Iraqi government that were laid out by the Bush administration, some of which were included in the Senate spending bill.

Although Reid suggested that Democrats would continue to insist on withdrawal language, he said he is confident that serious negotiations can yield a compromise.