President Bush moved quickly Tuesday to veto the bill to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and to provide additional financing for the war. The House of Representatives, as expected, failed to muster the votes yesterday to override.

The president's veto was another act in the struggle by the legislative branch of government elected in November to influence American actions in a war initiated and carried out for the past four years by a White House and Congress controlled by Mr. Bush's Republican Party.

Matters have become complicated in Washington's executive-legislative contest since the congressional majority favoring a timetable for troop withdrawal is not great enough to overrule Mr. Bush's veto. That means the next step must be negotiations, which were attempted yesterday at the White House between the president and leaders of the Congress.

Such talks might turn on Mr. Bush and the Congress finding language that the two sides can agree on between clean withdrawal and continued unbridled pursuit of the war by Mr. Bush. This sort of agreement would be based on benchmarks for performance by the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Al-Maliki. The problem with such a compromise is that the Al-Maliki government is non-functional. Key Shiite leaders have already dropped out; Sunnis threaten to follow them.

Despite failing to beat the veto, Congress is in a position both to continue supporting U.S. troops in Iraq and to insist on withdrawal. If Mr. Bush agrees to a bill with a timetable, he will be legally obliged to begin bringing troops home. If he doesn't sign a bill with deadlines, he doesn't get the additional $100 billion he has requested to continue the war.

The Congress doesn't need to worry about the troops being deprived of essential supplies since the Defense Department's regular budget has more than $500 billion in it that can be moved around to finance body armor, training or whatever is needed.

All Congress needs to do is show some courage and stand up to President Bush. Its ultimate service to our forces would be to see that no more of them lose their lives in a pointless war -- a great service indeed.