WASHINGTON — Like the Democratic Party at large, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation is divided as Congress prepares to vote on an Iraq war spending bill that omits deadlines for U.S. troop withdrawals.

Sen. Jack Reed supports the compromise appropriation that imposes a series of political demands on the Iraqi government but few conditions on President Bush’s power to press ahead with the war. Freshman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said he may also support the war funds bill, which will total about $120 billion, including disaster aid and other domestic provisions.

But both of Rhode Island’s House members plan to vote today against the bill, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy calling it, “a blank check to let President Bush continue his war.”

The Senate is scheduled to begin debate today.

The House and Senate votes follow months of contentious debate over the war and Mr. Bush’s veto of an earlier version of the spending measure that included deadlines for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

In bargaining with the White House, Democratic congressional leaders have since dropped the deadlines. They settled instead for a series of so-called “benchmarks” — goals for an oil-resources sharing deal, provincial elections and other demands on Iraq’s government that are meant to create the political reconciliation generally viewed as essential to the war-torn nation’s long-term stability.

But even some House Democratic leaders will balk at the final product, after allowing votes to add Hurricane Katrina disaster aid, health funds for children and a minimum wage increase, among other domestic appropriations. Kennedy and Rep. James R. Langevin said they will vote for those funds before opposing the overall war spending bill.

“This vote is a referendum on the president’s conduct of the war,” said Kennedy.

As the only member of the Rhode Island delegation to support Mr. Bush’s war resolution in October, 2002, about five months before the invasion of Iraq, Kennedy has come full circle with his recent votes to set withdrawal deadlines and, today, to shut off the supply of money for the war.

Kennedy has blamed Mr. Bush for what he has portrayed as the president’s deceptive arguments in favor of the invasion. But at the time of his vote for the war resolution, Kennedy also relied on experts from the Clinton administration.

Yesterday, Kennedy said, “I feel personal regret for that vote.”

Langevin said he will oppose the war funds bill because it does not include a troop withdrawal date. “We are postponing the inevitable,” he said. “We need to bring our troops home and reduce our footprint in Iraq.”

But Langevin stressed his support for “a strong U.S. presence in and around Iraq” to support the Iraqi government politically and to provide continued U.S. training for Iraqi troops. “We’ve done all we can militarily,” he said.

Reed, a leading Democratic voice on military affairs, said the spending bill is the best means toward the gradual troop withdrawal plan that he and Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., have advocated for more than a year.

By providing concrete political “benchmarks” for the Iraqis to attain, Reed said the bill will finally put Mr. Bush’s signature behind a policy that insists on political reconciliation as a condition for military success in Iraq.

Of antiwar constituents, Reed said, “I can certainly see where people are terribly frustrated by the president’s policy and his unwillingness to react appropriately to what’s happening on the ground in Iraq.”

Reed has said Democrats will continue to press Mr. Bush to begin withdrawing troops and reducing the U.S. military mission to such “critical components” as training Iraqi troops, and providing logistical and air support.

Whitehouse said he is undecided on the compromise spending measure. He stressed, however, that Democrats control the Senate by the thinnest of margins, meaning that, without significant GOP support, they cannot pass any bill that can withstand a presidential veto.

Reed and Whitehouse split last week on a test of Democratic opposition to the war. Whitehouse was among 28 Democrats who supported a bill by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., to cut off funds for the war, effective March 31, 2008. Reed opposed the measure.

“Using a cutoff of funds with an end date” for the war “is not the right approach,” Reed said — either for supporting the troops in Iraq now or for pushing the president to change his policy. “It injects a huge amount of uncertainty” into the financial flexibility the military needs, said Reed. “And it also sends a message to the troops that their support might be jeopardized.”

Whitehouse, however, said Democrats “have bent over backwards to say we support the troops.” He said “Republican talking points” about Democratic failure to support the troops “have no validity.” Whitehouse said he supports the spending cutoff as a way of pressuring the Bush administration to revise strategy and serve notice to Iraq that U.S. troop withdrawals will soon begin. Whitehouse said he would not vote to “take away money while troops are still in service” in Iraq.

Memorial Day weekend will probably mark the end of a battle that has raged all year over Mr. Bush’s request for an urgent infusion of war funds. But it will bring no more than pause in Democratic efforts to push the president toward a course change. Still, Democrats differ over how sharp the change should be.

“It’s not, it cannot, be the last word,” Reed said of this week’s vote. “It has to be seen for what it is: continuing to support the forces who are in the field in a dangerous situation. But this policy is not working, in my view, and it has to be changed” — under persistent prodding from Congress, if necessary, Reed said.

Whitehouse said opponents of the war will “just continue to keep the pressure on President Bush” to change course. He noted that September is the next likely moment for a hard reassessment of the war picture by the Congress and by Mr. Bush and his military leaders. A major legislative battle looms over war appropriations for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Kennedy and Langevin were more pointed in their prediction of worsening conditions in Iraq. Both said that if Mr. Bush gets his appropriation, as expected, the situation in Iraq will continue to deteriorate.

“I find it difficult if not impossible to believe that over the next four months the situation in Iraq will miraculously turn around,” said Langevin. “The best thing we can do to show our respect and support for the troops is bring them home.”

Kennedy said that as the military situation declines in Iraq, support at home for the war — even among Republicans — will weaken, too. “Inevitably the war will become more and more unpopular and the president will have to conclude it,” Kennedy said.

“I wish we had the votes” to shut off spending for the war, said Democratic Rep. James McGovern, a leading antiwar voice in the House who represents the Attleboros and part of Fall River.

“For those of us who are against the war, we just need to regroup and fight harder” after Mr. Bush signs the Iraq spending bill, McGovern said.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com