Washington ? In a blow to White House efforts to unite Congress behind a potential war with Iraq, the Senate’s top Democrat on Wednesday accused President Bush of politicizing the debate and demanded he apologize for questioning the commitment of Democrats to the nation’s defense.

“That is outrageous,” Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said in an angry speech on the Senate floor. He lambasted Bush for saying recently that Democrats were “not interested in the security of the American people.”

The bitter outburst which touched off a vitriolic exchange between party leaders is likely to slow efforts to win congressional approval of a resolution giving Bush broad authority to use force against Iraq.

That, in turn, could complicate Bush’s effort to build support in the international community for a tough new stance toward Iraq.

Congressional leaders had earlier said they hoped to reach agreement with the White House on the wording of the Iraq resolution by the end of this week, and bring the measure to a vote next week.

Now, there are doubts about whether such quick agreement is possible.

“We have a ways to go,” said House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. “I don’t know if we’ll pull that off or not.”

Anxieties surface

Daschle’s speech brought to the surface the deep anxieties many Democrats have expressed privately that Bush has been pushing for a pre-election debate on Iraq to bolster GOP candidates and to eclipse a Democratic agenda that focuses on domestic issues.

But White House officials and other Republicans said Daschle had taken Bush’s comments out of context, and they urged Democrats to cool their rhetoric.

“Now is a time for everybody concerned to take a deep breath and stop finger pointing,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Still, the tensions over the Iraq issue contributed to an already poisonous political atmosphere that has made it difficult for Congress to resolve differences on an array of issues including legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security.

Members of both parties who support Bush’s Iraq policy said they hoped Wednesday’s collapse of bipartisanship would be only temporary.

“Hopefully, we will see this as a blowing of the whistle which leads to a lowering of voices on all sides,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who supports the option of pre-emptive action against Iraq.

Injecting the campaign

Democratic concerns about Bush’s motives in the Iraq debate have become more acute in recent days as Republicans began airing campaign ads in conservative states such as South Dakota and Arkansas suggesting that Democratic Senate candidates were weak on defense.

Bush, meanwhile, is in the midst of an aggressive schedule of political appearances and has been speaking with increasing forcefulness about Iraq while campaigning for GOP candidates.

In a clear reference to Daschle and other Senate Democrats, Bush said Monday in Trenton, N.J., “the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.”

Until Wednesday, Daschle had studiously avoided accusing Bush of using the prospect of war for political purposes. But he dropped that reserve Wednesday after reading a story in The Washington Post that noted Bush’s New Jersey remark. The story noted that at the Monday fund-raiser in Overland Park, Kan., for congressional challenger Adam Taff, Vice President Dick Cheney had suggested that a vote for a Republican House candidate would help the war effort.

Those reports were particularly galling to Daschle because he like Gephardt has taken considerable heat from rank-and-file Democrats who believe their leaders have done too little to slow Bush’s rush to confront Iraq.

Tit-for-tat

A source close to Daschle said that on Wednesday, the majority leader felt that “his efforts to work with the president are not being reciprocated in a meaningful way.”

Indeed, the usually mild-mannered Daschle rose angrily on the Senate floor to defend his party’s record on national security. He invoked the many Democratic lawmakers who are military veterans, such as Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who lost an arm in World War II combat.

“The president ought to apologize to Sen. Inouye and every veteran who has fought in every war who is a Democrat in the Senate,” Daschle said. “Our founding fathers would be embarrassed by what they are seeing going on right now.”

Daschle’s remarks infuriated Republicans, who joined the White House in saying he quoted Bush out of context. They noted that he made his comment about Democrats as he was discussing legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, not a possible war with Iraq.

The homeland security bill has bogged down in the Senate over Bush’s insistence on a provision opposed by Democrats and their labor union allies to give him more flexibility in managing employees of the new department.

Congressional Republicans joined in the defense, saying Cheney’s remarks in Kansas had been misinterpreted by Democrats because of a headline in the Topeka newspaper.

Earlier in the day, Bush offered a low-key response when asked whether he was “politicizing the war.”

“My job is to protect the American people,” he told reporters. “And I will continue to do that, regardless of the season.”