Presidential Candidates Take Advantage of Senate Hearings

"We have to give the Iraqi warring factions a breathing room in regions with local control over the fabric of their daily lives -- police, education, jobs, marriage, religion, as, I might add, the Iraqi constitution calls for," Biden said. "A federal decentralized Iraq, in my view, is our last, best hope for a stable Iraq."

Most Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), now are willing to concede certain terms to moderate Republicans, such as their demand for a fixed withdrawal deadline, in order to pass a veto-proof bill. But war opponents in both the House and Senate are resisting such a strategic pivot, believing it would render any legislative outcome meaningless.

Obama, who opposed the original invasion, signaled his support for the consensus approach in remarks at the Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday morning. He noted Bush's recent comment to the Australian prime minister that the United States was "kicking A-S-S in Iraq."

"It makes it very difficult then for those of us who would like to join with you in a bipartisan way to figure out how to best move forward to extricate this from the day-to-day politics that infects Washington," Obama lamented.

But Obama isn't just looking for bipartisan compromise. He is seeking political advantage in his bid for the Democratic nomination, and plans an Iraq speech in Iowa today in which he is expected to draw distinctions with rivals and lay out new recommendations for ending U.S. involvement there.

By the time Clinton took the microphone yesterday evening in the Armed Services Committee, the room was largely empty. In a lawyerly approach, she challenged many of the conclusions offered by Petraeus and Crocker during their previous nine-plus hours of testimony in a Senate hearing room, after seven hours in the House on Monday.

Even more directly, she challenged the competence of the Bush administration. "Ambassador, it's not only the Iraqi government that, in my view, has to pursue a coherent strategy," she said. "I think our own has, as well."

-- Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray