Petraeus has about 20 weeks.

Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline.

In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq’s warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding…

The new House proposal would immediately provide about $43 billion of the $95.5 billion the administration says it needs to keep the war going through Sept. 30… The remaining $52.5 billion in the bill would be contingent on a second vote in late July…

“There is a sense that by September, you’ve got to see real action on the part of Iraqis,” said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). “I think everybody knows that, I really do.”

“I think a lot of us feel that way,” agreed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

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