By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress intends to approve money on Thursday that President George W. Bush sought to continue the war in Iraq, marking a failure by Democrats to impose a timetable for withdrawing troops from an increasingly expensive and unpopular conflict.

Democrats and the White House have engaged in fierce debate since January, kicked off by Bush's request for nearly $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to pay for the 30,000 extra troops he is sending to the war zone.

If all goes as planned, the House of Representatives will vote first on Thursday, before sending the bill to the Senate for final passage of the measure that will bring total war spending to more than half a trillion dollars since late 2001.

Lawmakers were racing against a deadline this week to give Bush the money, just before a congressional recess and as combat money was running out.

In a strange turn, Democrats are shepherding an Iraq bill through Congress that many of them do not support.

Bush vetoed an earlier version setting an Oct. 1 deadline for starting a troop withdrawal from Iraq and Democrats figured they could not hold up the war funds any longer with a protracted fight with the president.

Despite their majority in both chambers of Congress after November's election, Democrats have not been able to muster a two-thirds vote needed to overturn a presidential veto.

Democrats also gave up for now on their plan requiring Bush to certify U.S. troops sent to combat are adequately trained, rested and equipped, as Pentagon rules require. That provision could have put serious constraints on the military.

Instead, the new war funding bill will require only that Bush certify the Iraqi government's progress in stabilizing the country. The penalty for failure would be denying around $1.6 billion in reconstruction aid to Iraq, but even that could be waived by Bush.

RISING COSTS

Trying to put the best face on a disappointing result, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a member of the House Democratic leadership said: "This legislation marks the beginning of the end of the Iraq war."

The new measure, he said, would bring "accountability to this war."

Emanuel's statement stood in contrast to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who called the measure a "capitulation."

One House Republican leader, Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, boasted: "We got surrender dates taken out," along with other Democratic concessions.

"That's a pretty good day's work," Putnam said.

With the new legislation, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would hit $170 billion just for this year, with Iraq eating up most of the money.

The funds are supposed to cover the $6 billion cost of sending the extra troops, the repair and replacement of equipment lost or worn out in battle and the pay for missions conducted by the 147,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.

As the number of severely wounded troops mounts, so is the cost of caring for them.

This year's war tab is 40 percent higher than last year's and more than double what Bush spent in 2004, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Total war spending, including the latest $100 billion, would hit more than $565 billion since late 2001, CRS said.

Congress already is working on next year's war budget. Bush wants around $142 billion and it is not clear that would cover the entire year's operations. This money would be in addition to $482 billion Bush requested for regular Pentagon funding for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1.

Democrats say they will return to their Iraq troop withdrawal initiatives in July, when next year's military funding bills begin to move through the House.

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