WASHINGTON — The Senate Republican leader is reserving judgment on the number of troops in Iraq until he hears from President Bush and General David Petraeus.

At the same time, Senator McConnell is preparing to advance a plan to keep American troops in the Middle East over the long term. When asked by reporters yesterday why he favored a long-term presence in the region, though not necessarily in Iraq, he said, “two reasons: Al Qaeda and Iran.”

The Kentucky lawmaker’s Republican caucus is the target for Democratic leaders in the Senate, who announced their intention yesterday to seek “a responsible end to the war in Iraq.” But while two months ago as many as a dozen Republicans appeared likely to support Democratic withdrawal bills, today the votes seem to be in place to continue the surge of American troops.

In their first day back from the August recess, Democrats launched their campaign to declare the surge a failure, taking testimony from the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, David Walker, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Walker’s report to Congress on whether Iraq’s government and security services met a series of benchmarks, some of which were agreed upon by the Iraqi government in June 2006, painted a bleak picture of the war.

“I think you would have to say it is dysfunctional, the government is dysfunctional,” he said when asked for his view of the current elected government, of which nearly half of its ministers have resigned their posts. Mr. Walker specifically said it was “unclear” whether the Iraqi government would even spend the $10 billion allotted to it for reconstruction. He also said he could not answer whether the surge in Baghdad has decreased attacks on civilians, and he called into question the readiness of Iraq’s security forces.

For the Senate Democratic leadership, the word from the GAO was enough. A press statement from the Senate Democratic leaders said: “According to the President himself, the troop escalation was meant to allow Iraq’s political leaders the time to reconcile their differences and build a sustainable government. According to today’s GAO report the Iraqis have by all accounts failed to achieve any political reconciliation.”

While the Democratic leadership has come out against the surge in Iraq, three candidates for the party’s presidential nomination did not appear at yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Among the no-shows were Senator Biden of Delaware, the chairman of the committee, as well as Senator Obama of Illinois and Senator Dodd of Connecticut. In Mr. Biden’s place, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, the party’s presidential nominee in 2004, chaired the hearing. Mr. Kerry bowed out of the presidential race earlier this year, saying he wanted to devote his time and energy to ending the war in Iraq.

Both Majority Leader Reid, a Democrat of Nevada, and his counterpart, Mr. McConnell, are keeping mum on legislative specifics on the war. Mr. Reid has yet to say what kind of new legislation or amendments he would attach to a funding bill for the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, money that dries up this month.

At a press conference yesterday, Mr. McConnell would not specify whether he would support a long-term troop presence in Iraq or another country in the Middle East. “The question is, regardless of how you feel about the state of things in Iraq at the moment, what’s the best way to protect the homeland, us, here, civilians, in America, for the future? And I think it involves at least some level of American troop deployment in that area of the world,” he said.

The Senate minority leader did downplay the importance of the GAO report. When asked about it, Mr. McConnell said, “Well, there are a number of reports but all reports are not equal. The reports by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker — those reports will be before the Congress next week.”

Previewing his report to Congress on September 15, General Petraeus gave interviews yesterday to CBS News and ABC News in which he emphasized the military progress in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.

“If you look at the country as a whole, there is an unacceptable level of violence. But that level of violence, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths, you name it, the number of incidents has been reduced dramatically,” General Petraeus told CBS. “That’s not to say there are not places where it is very, very tough. The question is which way is it headed, and I think it’s headed up.”

When asked by CBS what he thought of the recommendation by Senator Warner, a Republican of Virginia, that some troops should be sent home before Christmas, the general said to wait for his report next week.

“The surge has to run its course,” General Petraeus said. “There’s no question about that. The question is how can you make adjustments to the force to bring the force levels down and retain what we have fought so hard to achieve.”

The general’s deputy commander, General Ray Odierno, told reporters yesterday that decisions on withdrawal would be tied to an area’s local political and military progress.