WASHINGTON
But there was little sign of such nervousness on Wednesday as Republican after Republican took to the Senate floor to offer an unambiguous embrace of the Iraq war and to portray Democrats as advocates of an overly hasty withdrawal that would have grave consequences for the security of the United States. Like their counterparts in the House last week, they accused Democrats of espousing "retreat and defeatism."
That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on Wednesday, Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest liability into an advantage in the midterm elections.
The approach might yet be upended by more problems in Iraq, as Republicans were reminded this week with reports about two American servicemen who were abducted, tortured and apparently killed. Some polls show a majority of Americans continue to think that entering Iraq was a mistake, and pollsters say independent voters are particularly open to the idea of setting some sort of timetable for withdrawal, the very policy Democrats have embraced and Republicans are now fighting.
But people who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the war in an election year.
White House officials including the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, outlined ways in which Republican lawmakers could speak more forcefully about the war. Participants also included Mr. Bush's top political and communications advisers: his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove; his political director, Sara Taylor; and the White House counselor, Dan Bartlett. Mr. Rove is newly freed from the threat of indictment in the C.I.A. leak case, and leaders of both parties see his reinvigorated hand in the strategy.
The meetings were followed by the distribution of a 74-page briefing book to Congressional offices from the Pentagon to provide ammunition for what White House officials say will be a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.
Republicans say the cumulative effect would be to send a message of weakness to the world at a time of new threats from Iran and North Korea and would leave enemies controlling Iraq's vast oil reserves, the third largest in the world. (The book, including a chapter entitled "Rapid Response" with answers to frequent Democratic charges, was sent via e-mail to Republican lawmakers but, in an apparent mistake, also to some Democrats.)
A senior adviser to Mr. Bush said the White House had concluded that it was better to plunge aggressively into the debate on Iraq than to let Democrats play upon clear, public misgivings about the war. "This is going to be a big issue in this election," said the adviser, who was granted anonymity in exchange for agreeing to describe strategic considerations about the war. "Better to shape and fight it — as good and strongly as you can — than to try to run away from it."
In a telephone interview, Ken Mehlman, the Republican chairman, disputed the notion that the latest difficulties in Iraq would set back the effort to push the debate onto newly favorable terms for Republicans.
"The fundamental question," Mr. Mehlman said, "is if you think the enemy is more brutal than before, is the answer that you should surrender?"
Officials at the White House say they had always planned to use the formation of a new, permanent Iraqi government as a lever to seize control of a debate that had been slipping away from them. The killing of the top terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, provided another useful lift. And, they said, Democratic calls for speedy troop withdrawal provided an opening for them to use a "cut and run" argument against Democrats, which Mr. Rove used last week in a speech in New Hampshire.
Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, said House Republicans had been planning to introduce a resolution emphasizing the need to complete the mission in Iraq. But, he said, the House leaders worked in consultation with the White House to hone the final language of the resolution, which read in part that "the terrorists have declared Iraq to be the central front in their war against all who oppose their ideology."
The strategy still required calming some uneasy Republicans, administration officials said. A participant in one White House meeting, who would discuss the intraparty debate only after being promised anonymity, said Mr. Bush's aides sought to convince lawmakers that the political situation was not so dire because polls had also shown dissatisfaction with progress in Iraq in 2004. Democrats say the climate is far different now, with a higher American death tally and fresh acknowledgments from even the administration that crucial mistakes were made.
"Two-thousand-six is not 2004," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who is running the Senate Democrats' campaign effort. "The American people recognize that the commander in chief got us into Iraq and it is his job to get us out of Iraq."
But Republicans who have expressed nervousness about the war earlier this month seemed less so by the time of this week's Senate debate. In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican who has frequently expressed concern about the war's effect on his prospects this year, said he favored a path that could be called "staying the course, or learning from our mistakes and now doing it right."
Mr. Shays echoed other Republicans by saying, "I would strongly oppose any premature departure from Iraq to help me or anyone else win election."
