Saturday on how to debate the administration's Iraq policy, or indeed whether it should be debated at all.

There had been virtually no doubt about the outcome in the House today, given the Democratic majority in the chamber and the fact that a significant number of Republicans had also signaled their backing for the resolution, which expresses support for American troops but not for their commander-in-chief.

Seventeen Republicans voted for the resolution. Two Democrats, Jim Marshall of Georgia and Gene Taylor of Mississippi, voted against it. Mr. Marshall is the son and grandson of Army generals and was wounded in combat in Vietnam, according to The Almanac of American Politics. Mr. Taylor has a generally conservative voting record and is "strongly pro-defense," the almanac says. Six representatives cast no vote.

Before the votes were counted, Republican leaders were undeterred by the likelihood that they would be defeated. "The 'no' votes are the right votes," said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip.

The Republican minority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, warned that the resolution, while symbolic, charted "a very treacherous path" that could lead to cutting off money for the American campaign.

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said that the time had come to give American troops "a course of action that is worthy of their sacrifice," by opposing Mr. Bush's plan to increase troop strength in Iraq. As many of her Democratic colleagues did, Ms. Pelosi said the war in Iraq is not part of the battle against terrorism, but rather a distraction from it.

But Representative Peter King of New York, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said, "This war in Iraq cannot be looked at in a vacuum," and is indeed a theater in the war on terror.

One Democrat after another spoke in favor of a resolution, apparently headed for passage, that criticizes Mr. Bush's decision to send more than 20,000 additional troops, calling it part of a deeply flawed strategy that has stirred more violence in the Middle East and damaged America's image.

And one Republican after another rose in opposition, accusing the Democrats of rushing to judgment without giving the president's new security plan a chance to work and warning that a vote for the resolution would embolden America's enemies and damage the morale of its fighting men and women.

Despite the emotions on both sides, there were moments of agreement. Ms. Pelosi drew sustained applause when she said that everyone in the chamber prarised the valor and sacrifice of Americans serving in Iraq.

That the two sides saw the resolution in starkly different terms was reflected in the remarks of two representatives from New York State.

Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from the western part of the state, said the Bush administration's Iraq campaign had been marked by "mismanagement and misinformation," and that United States forces had been given an impossible mission, to "find a military solution to a political problem."

It is high time, Ms. Slaughter said, for Congress to provide "a clear, unambiguous answer to the most important issue facing the country," and formally repudiate Mr. Bush's policy.

But Vito Fossella, a Republican whose district includes Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, said the resolution would sound "a clarion call of retreat" and set the nation's foes to wondering where the United States will retreat next.

"You cannot surrender the battlefield and win the war," said Mr. Fossella, who spoke immediately after Ms. Slaughter in the debate.

With Democrats holding 233 seats in the House, to 201 for the Republicans (one seat became vacant this week with the death of Charles Norwood, a Georgia Republican), the outcome today was widely expected.

Unlike the Senate, the House does not operate under rules that allow a sufficiently large minority to hold off votes indefinitely through a filibuster. The Senate, where a resolution was stalled last week by parliamentary maneuvering, will convene in a rare Saturday session this weekend, when the Democratic leaders hope to force a debate on the resolution.

Some supporters of the House resolution hope, and opponents fear, that today's symbolic vote - such resolutions are not laws and have no practical effect - will open the way for more drastic steps to curb the president's power by attaching restrictions to spending bills.

By 11 a.m., 345 of the 434 House members had spoken in 44 hours of debate over four days, C-Span reported. Democrats declared again and again that a vote against the president's policy is not a vote against American troops, while many Republicans said the opposite.

Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California and one of the harshest critics of the administration, said that Mr. Bush and his aides had bungled the war and lost the peace.

"We cannot achieve the illusions of the Bush administration," Mr. Waxman said, asserting that the entire Middle East "threatens to be engulfed by the forces we have unleashed."

But a California Republican, Elton Gallegly, said the United States must persevere in Iraq because "we're at war with Islamic jihadists." Failure in Iraq, he said, would give terrorists a sanctuary like the one they enjoyed in Afghanistan before the Taliban was toppled.

Democrats said the United States had already done all it could in Iraq. David Wu of Oregon said Iraq had been eliminated as a threat to the United States; now, he said, "we referee a civil war between the people of Iraq," part of a conflict that could last "another thousand years."

But Representative Barbara Cubin, the Wyoming Republican, said Mr. Bush's strategy was political and economic as well as military, and should be given a chance. "This resolution sends a dangerous message to the terrorists in Iraq," Ms. Cubin said. "They have succeeded in dividing us."

Some Democrats spoke of a different message, one delivered last November. "The American people have demanded a change in direction," said Joseph Crowley, whose district covers part of the Bronx and Queens.

Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina was one of those Republicans who broke with his party leaders and voted for the resolution. He said he had concluded that the conflict in Iraq was a civil war, and that a continued American presence there "makes no sense at all."