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BAGHDAD — The long-awaited Baghdad security operation has begun, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said today.

The Iraqi general who is leading the security drive took over the operation headquarters on Monday, but there had been no announcement until today that the sweep, the third attempt to crush violence in nine months, was under way.

"It is ongoing as we speak," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said today. "The implementation of (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's) plan has already begun and will be fully implemented at a later date, having all the parts and pieces that he wants.

"But portions are already being put in place, and we'll continue to put more into place as the forces arrive and the assets become available."

The Iraqi officer who is leading the security drive, Lt. Gen. Abboud Gambar, took over the operation headquarters Monday.

The United States is in the process of sending another 21,500 troops to Iraq, 17,500 whom will be directly allocated to the operation in Baghdad.

In Washington Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a House panel today the United States should know in a few months if the Iraqi government is making progress toward peace and whether the United States "is going to have to look at other alternatives and consequences."

Gates had said Tuesday that U.S. forces might be able to start leaving Iraq before the end of the year, if daunting conditions including subdued violence and political reconciliation are met.

Democrats and several Republicans say they oppose the deployment of more U.S. troops to Iraq and that it is time the Iraqi government stepped up to defend its own country.

Tired of waiting for an opportunity to try to stop the war in Iraq, some Democrats say they want to use legislation approving billions of dollars in war spending to insist that Bush not send more troops or bring troops home by a certain date.

"The longer we delay taking action, the greater the failure in Iraq and the larger the cost in American blood and treasure," said Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who supports legislation that would cap the number of troops allowed in Iraq.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said he would push his legislation ordering troops out of Iraq by March 2008.

"This is not a symbolic vote," Obama said of his proposal, which is backed by two House Democrats. "This is what I think has the best chance of bringing our troops home."

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who drafted a similar proposal, said Congress' actions will be watched carefully by voters headed to the polls in 2008.

"If the Congress is going to procrastinate, if they refuse to debate the most important issue of our time . . . then that is going to be a clear issue in the context of Õ08," said Kerry.

Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have pledged to their rank-and-file that a vote on a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop buildup would merely be the first attempt to pressure Bush to shift course in the war. Other legislation will be binding, they said.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters he hoped the measure in the House would attract Republican support.

Republican Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, his party's House leader, said that he hoped the GOP would be permitted to seek a vote on an alternative. If so, he said it would call for a bipartisan committee to oversee the war effort, and lay out a series of benchmarks by which people could judge whether the Iraqi government was living up to its commitments to help quell the violence.

"If you're not for victory in Iraq, you're for failure," Boehner said. "The consequences of failure are immense. I think it destabilizes the entire Middle East, encourages Iran and, on top of that, it's pretty clear that the terrorists will just follow us home."