Washington ? Two years after the Iraq invasion, America seems to be losing its stomach for war.

With polls finding support for the Iraq war at a record low, members of Congress are becoming increasingly vocal about their desire for an exit strategy. On Thursday, 41 House Democrats formed a new “Out of Iraq” caucus.

Separately, four lawmakers – two Democrats and two Republicans – introduced a resolution calling for withdrawal starting in October 2006. It doesn’t specify an end point for complete withdrawal, but it bucks the Bush administration line all the same.

Its sponsors include Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., a conservative whose district includes the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune. He’s hardly a stereotypical dove; in the early days of the war, Jones’ anger over French opposition prompted him to propose replacing French fries with “freedom fries” on the menu in Capitol dining rooms.

Resolution supporters said it had little chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress. They said their goal was to start a national debate on bringing home the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. More than 1,700 Americans have died since President Bush ordered the invasion on March 19, 2003.

“Do we want to be there 20 years, 30 years? That’s why this resolution is so important: We need to take a fresh look at where we are and where we’re going,” Jones said at a Capitol news conference.

The resolution’s other sponsors were Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas; Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; and Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii.

In another development, anti-war activists delivered Thursday evening petitions with more than 540,000 signatures to the White House demanding that Bush respond to new allegations that he deceived people in the run-up to war.

The controversy kicked up anew after publication last month of a secret British government memo, which said Bush “fixed” intelligence to promote his choice for war and that he’d been determined to go to war months before he said so publicly.

Bush repeatedly has said he accurately presented the facts as he knew them, although he has acknowledged he was wrong about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. He also has long maintained that he didn’t make a final decision to go to war until shortly before the invasion.

The fledgling anti-war movement is a long way from the groundswell of opposition that rose up against the Vietnam War in the late ’60s, but Bush is concerned enough to step up efforts to rally public support. Bush will welcome Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari to the White House next week. He also plans a series of speeches on his goals in Iraq.

“People are concerned about the situation in Iraq,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday. “The president wants to see the troops come home soon. But the best way to honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform is to complete the mission.”

At the Pentagon, Defense officials and military commanders said talk of withdrawal could undermine U.S. troop morale and encourage Iraqi insurgents. They declined to predict when U.S. troops might come home or offer any clear yardstick for victory.

“When the Iraqis feel that they’re able to take the reins completely, then, I think, we’ll be looking at the V-word,” said Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A recent Gallup poll found a majority of Americans – 59 percent – favors partial or total withdrawal. In another sign of ebbing support, only 42 percent felt that the war was worth it, down from a high of 76 percent in the war’s early days.

Some hear echoes from Vietnam.

“The primary parallel is that the more American deaths we find and the longer the war drags on with no clearly visible end, the more dissension there is among the American public,” said Mitchell Hall, a history professor at Central Michigan University and a specialist on the Vietnam anti-war movement. “Clearly, there is a growing war weariness like there was those many years ago.”

But Hall also noted some big differences between then and now.

The death toll in Iraq pales in comparison to the 58,235 American deaths in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. And back then, the military draft brought the risk of war home to millions of American families. Troops in Iraq are volunteers.

However, the military’s growing inability to meet recruitment goals is another sign of the war’s unpopularity; recruiters had no trouble in 1941. Military leaders fear that an anti-war movement will send the wrong signal to Iraqi insurgents.

“They know our history, just like we study them. They see where we have withdrawn previously – in Vietnam, in Beirut, in Somalia,” said Conway, the Joint Chiefs operations director. “Nothing would make them happier, I suppose, than to think that there is a deadline out there.”