WASHINGTON, April 19 — As Congressional Democrats sought to reconcile their differences and send an Iraq spending bill to the White House, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Thursday that “this war is lost,” a stark assessment that Republicans argued would demoralize American troops fighting in Iraq.

One day after legislative leaders met with President Bush, failing to find common ground, House Democrats signaled their intention to step away from a mandatory deadline to remove troops from Iraq, and to work instead toward a compromise of setting a goal for troops to be withdrawn next year.

But the president said that any timetable for a troop redeployment, even a goal, would face a veto. “I think it’s a mistake, and I’ve made it clear, that the Congress should not have artificial timetables for withdrawal in a funding statement,” Mr. Bush said Thursday during a speech in Ohio.

In Washington, Mr. Reid delivered a biting critique of the Iraq war, saying there was no military solution to the conflict. At a news conference, he recounted a private conversation with the president about the Vietnam War, saying he told Mr. Bush not to follow the path of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who “did not want a war loss on his watch.”