By Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray

Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President George W. Bush aggressively to withdraw troops.

Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticising Bush's handling of the war.

A growing chorus of Democrats, however, have said this criticism should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy something most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer.

The wariness, congressional aides and outside strategists said in interviews recently, reflects a belief among some in the opposition that proposals to force troop draw-downs or otherwise limit Bush's options would be perceived by many voters as defeatist.

Some fear such moves would exacerbate the party's traditional vulnerability on national security issues.

The internal schism has become all the more evident in recent weeks even as Americans have soured on Bush and the war in poll after poll.

Senate Democrats, according to aides, convened a private meeting in late June to develop a cohesive stance on the war and debated every option only to break up with no consensus.

The rejuvenation of the anti-war movement in recent days after the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq set up camp near Bush's Texas ranch has exposed the rift even further.

Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat, Wisconsin, broke with his party leadership to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline.

Feingold proposed December 31, 2006. In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address, former senator Max Cleland (Georgia), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out".

While critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nevada), Senator Joseph Biden (Delaware) and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York) all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.

The internal disarray, according to many Democrats, reflects more than a near-term tactical debate.

Some say it reveals a fundamental identity crisis in the post-9/11 world for a party that struggled to move beyond the anti-war legacy of the 1960s and 1970s to reinvent itself as tougher on national security in the 1990s.

But historic fault lines in the party run deep. Along with high gasoline prices, the Iraq war has fed public discontent that is expressing itself as members of Congress tour home districts during the August recess.

Democratic officeholders have watched carefully as peace demonstrators inspired by grieving mother-turned-activist Cindy Sheehan outside Bush's ranch near Crawford, Texas staged more than 1,000 candlelight vigils around the country.

They also took note of the strong showing of Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq veteran turned war critic who nearly snatched away a Republican House seat in a special election in Ohio this month.

House Democratic leaders are recruiting other Iraq veterans to run in next year's mid-term elections. "It is time to stand up and begin questioning the president's leadership," said Steve Jarding, a Democratic consultant who ran the 2001 state campaign of Virginia Governor Mark Warner, now a potential presidential candidate.

"We have to go on the offensive to show the American people that we're not afraid to disagree," Feingold said.

He believes an immediate withdrawal does not make military sense, but that the public needs reassurance that the Iraq operation is moving purposefully towards completion.

The potency of anti-war sentiment within the party's base could be seen in the enthusiasm expressed for Feingold among liberal internet bloggers in the days after he made his withdrawal proposal.

Unscientific internet polls showed support rising for a Feingold presidential run in 2008.

Liberal bloggers have lambasted the party leadership for missed opportunities.

When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted a confirmation hearing for Bush confidante Karen Hughes, tapped as the next undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, not a single Democrat showed up to grill her on administration policy.

"Excuse me, but do you ENJOY being in the minority?" complained an entry that day on Think Progress, the blog for the Centre for American Progress, a think-tank run by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta.

Turning Iraq into a sharply partisan issue, however, carries deep risks for Democrats and the country, others warn.

"Credit the Democrats for not trying to pour more gasoline on the fire, even if they're not particularly unified in their message," said Michael McCurry, a former Clinton White House press secretary.

Some argue Democrats do not need to craft an alternative policy, deeming it better simply to let Bush struggle. "The need for a coherent alternative mattered more when the benefit of the doubt went to the commander in chief," said Jeremy Rosner of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm. "Now he's getting to a dicey range of public opinion."

Still, the Democratic discord has provided solace for Bush advisers at a difficult time. Although Bush's approval ratings have sunk, the Democrats have gained no ground at his expense.