Major fissures are showing up all over the GOP on Iraq, and expect those fissures to widen into gigantic crevasses by late summer. Just a quick survey: just this week alone, Senator Lugar slammed Iraq policy, and the next day he was joined by Senator Voinovich. Last week, James Gilmore III, a centrist conservative candidate for president, suggested that it was getting close to pack up and go home. The pressure is building.

In the House too, there is some movement. At least 11 Republicans met with Bush to read him the riot act, and now Chris Shays (CT), Frank Wolf (VA) and Michael McCaul (TX) are demanding the restoration of the Iraq Study Group.

Yesterday, at the inaugural meeting of the Center for New American Security, a center-right Democratic-leaning thinktank, I asked Senator Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, if he's talked to his colleagues about breaking with the White House over Iraq, as he has done. His answer:

We in this business of politics represent where we come from. We represent you. And elected officials are not going to get too distant from their constituents. You know where the polls are going. The American people have left the president [on Iraq]. Most of my Republican colleagues, like Senator Lugar, are moving in that direction, like Senator Voinovich.

He went on to say that September is key, and that even before then, with the defense authorization bill, there will be a fight in July. Then in September the real fight will occur around the appropriations bill. And he added that he hopes that it will be settled before the early presidential season "locks Congress down into early political paralysis."

I asked him if he'd comment on the possibility for a veto-proof majority in the Senate. "Well, we'll see," he said. "It's evolving. We've got a long way to go."