WASHINGTON — As the nation’s top soldier and its top diplomat in Iraq testify to the Senate today about the state of the war, Democrats have reframed their argument to stress its cost and the need for what they call “a bold new plan” that would focus more on counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan and on repairing the U.S. Army.

But there is no sign that Senate Democrats have gained enough votes to force President Bush to turn away from the surge plan that he charted more than a year ago with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq. Petraeus is expected today to defend his call for a midyear “pause” in the troop reductions that Mr. Bush authorized late last year from the 20-brigade peak of strength during the strategic surge in U.S. troop strength.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will also review the gains they see — especially the marked reduction in overall violence — since Mr. Bush opted early in 2006 to boost U.S. troop levels in Iraq from fewer than 130,000 to roughly 160,000. If Petraeus’ pause in force reductions extends into 2009, the next president could inherit a commitment of as many as 140,000 troops in Iraq.

Legislators on both sides of the war issue have made clear that there will be an election-year flavor to commentary on the high-profile hearings. “That’s what this presidential race is about,” Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters yesterday. “It’s time for us to demand real results from Iraqi politicians, and that starts by making it clear to them that we are not going to have over 100,000 combat troops in Iraq indefinitely.”

Sen. Jack Reed, a leader of the informal Senate Democratic war council, said in an interview that his party shortly will renew efforts to force deeper troop withdrawals by amending vital military spending measures.

In a speech to veterans yesterday, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, blasted Democratic efforts to impose deadlines on the American enterprise in Iraq.

“To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility,” McCain told a veterans group in Arlington, Va. “It is a failure of leadership.”

Kerry supports a measure, defeated several times last year, which would have withheld war funds as a spur to setting U.S. troop withdrawal deadlines. The Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, have both supported attempts to mandate the withdrawal of most combat troops on a timetable as short as one year. In varying degrees, three members of Rhode Island’s all-Democratic congressional delegation — Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy and Rep. James R. Langevin –– all favor such a formula.

Reed prefers a more open-ended approach, fixing a date to begin troop withdrawals but giving military leaders the flexibility to set the timetable and the number of troops to be left in Iraq for counterterrorism and support of Iraqi forces. Without embracing specific figures, Reed has expressed the view that even the reduced mission could commit tens of thousands of U.S. troops for years to come.

But the question is somewhat academic, because Senate Democrats have rarely mustered a majority for any troop cuts and never approached the 60-vote majority that Senate rules require to force a decisive vote.

Despite initial skepticism, Reed and other prominent Democratic voices on the war have acknowledged the improved military situation. But they criticize what they view as the failure of the Iraqi government to exploit that success to reconcile Iraq’s warring political factions and build a stable society.

Reed argues, moreover, that the government’s inconclusive attack on Shiite militias in the key southern port of Basra late last month represents “a loss of face” for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Both in southern Iraq and in areas around Baghdad “the violence ramped up so quickly” after the Basra operation that it showed enduring rifts among Shia groups, Reed said.

The violence — which, after a lull, has reignited in Baghdad’s Shiite bastion of Sadr City — also illustrates how poorly the military progress in Iraq has been matched by political gains that might forestall sectarian fighting, according to Reed.

In his speech to the Virginia veterans group, McCain portrayed the surge as having pulled the United States back from the brink of calamity in Iraq. In early 2007, he said, “Four years of a badly-conceived military strategy had brought us almost to the point of no return. Sectarian violence in Iraq was spiraling out of control, life had become a struggle for survival, and a full-scale civil war seemed almost unavoidable. Al-Qaida in Iraq was on the offensive. Entire Iraqi provinces were under the control of extremists and were deemed all but lost.”

Like Reed, McCain described last month’s government offensive as inconclusive, but he saw more of a silver lining than did the Rhode Islander. “Iraqi forces recently battled in Basra against radical Shia militias, supported by Iran, a fight that showed the progress made by the Iraqi security forces — a year ago, they could not have carried out such operations on their own.”

Reed also offered another line of the emerging Democratic argument: that Petraeus’ guidance, while valuable, has to be viewed as “narrow.” Reed said that because of his mission, Petraeus does not share the global perspective of Secretary of States Robert Gates or the urgent concerns of top Army leadership about the wear and tear that five years of war has inflicted on the Army.

Reed said that the threat of the Taliban is growing in Afghanistan and al-Qaida is increasing its influence in Pakistan.

As a West Point graduate whose first career was as an Army officer, Reed has voiced particular concern about the damage that the war has done to Army readiness — which is at a low ebb in the history of the all-volunteer force that replaced the draft in the 1970s. Reed said the training regimens and career paths of junior officers and non-commissioned officers have been distorted by the need for continual replenishment of infantry forces in Iraq. Specialists in artillery or other fields are lacking in their regular training routines, Reed said.

Earlier this year, Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of state and Petraeus’ predecessor as chief of ground forces in Iraq, testified in Congress that he wants to cut back the length of deployments to Iraq from 15 months to the customary 12-month tour and may be able to do so if there are sufficient reductions in troop levels in Iraq. Reed said the prospect of reduced tours of Iraq is in question because of the possibility of the extended pause that Petraeus may prescribe in troop reductions.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com