By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered the first concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush’s top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they’d strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no deal was struck.

“To say I was disappointed in the meeting is an understatement,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “I really did expect that the president would accept some accountability for what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who rejected the deal, said any timetable on the war would undermine the nation’s efforts in Iraq.

“We consider that to be not a significant distinction,” he said. “Whether waivable or not, timelines send the wrong signal.”

At stake is the more than $90 billion the president says is needed to cover the costs of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan through September. The Democratic-controlled Congress on May 1 sent Bush a bill that would have funded the war but also would have demanded that troops start coming home Oct. 1.

Bush swiftly rejected that bill. Unable to override his veto, Democrats have been trying to find a way to pass a new bill by Memorial Day that funds the troops but still challenges Bush’s Iraq policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said negotiations with the White House were not dead, but she and Reid made it clear they would proceed this weekend on their own in drafting a new bill they could be widely supported in Congress. The leaders said the plan remained to send Bush a bill by the Memorial Day recess.

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