Sen. Hillary Clinton's testy face-off with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stole the show at a hearing on Iraq last week. But the backdrop to Clinton's move — tough questions and scowls from senators of both parties — illustrated how Republicans are also pulling away from the war. Even top generals fretted about how the violence is spinning out of control.

It was a painful litany of problems and no solutions. If the grim hearing had a title, it would be "Prepare to Abandon Ship."

Clinton is certainly looking for the lifeboats. Flayed by her party's wackadoo wing for not turning on the war, she cleverly staged her showdown. She had demanded that Rumsfeld appear before the Armed Services Committee and got her way. When her turn came, she blistered him with a statement that used words like "strategic blunders" and "incompetence" and accused him of "presiding over a failed policy." Even a question was an attack: "Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?"

Rummy let out a "my goodness gracious," and protested that "I've never painted a rosy picture," saying "I understand this is tough stuff."

It was good theater and served Clinton's aim of appeasing her party's growing anti-war drift. Coming on a day when a poll showed Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman 13 points behind a primary challenger who made Lieberman's war support the key issue, Clinton surely scored points with many Dems. She added to her total by later demanding that Rumsfeld resign, something she had refused to do before.

Clinton's shift would have been remarkable only weeks ago, but support for the war is slipping so fast that she appears fairly mainstream in the Senate. The distressing sense that we are powerless to stop the savage bloodletting settled on the hearing like a dark cloud. There were no predictions about turning corners or complaints the media were ignoring the good news. Our Mideast commander, Gen. John Abizaid, said, "The sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it." A civil war is likely, he said, if it isn't stopped.

Left unsaid was the hint that American troops would not be able to function in that environment and would have to flee.

Republicans were pained, too. The panel's chairman, John Warner of Virginia, looked like he was presiding at a funeral. And John McCain of Arizona seethed as he questioned the generals about the plan to take American troops from other parts of Iraq to try to stop the violence in Baghdad. He likened it to playing the child's game of "whack-the-mole," with problems popping up all over the place. But McCain didn't call for hiking our troop strength, so it wasn't clear what he was suggesting.

Many in Congress have their eyes on the midterm elections, or, like Clinton and McCain, on 2008. But I still find it shocking that they all seem willing to let the Iraq mission slip away without urgently offering solutions, or even exploring the frightening ramifications if we leave Iraq. Especially coming as Hezbollah displays a stubborn strength against Israel, the possibility of an exponential growth in the power of terror groups raises all kinds of security issues for us and for Israel, our closest Mideast ally.

Members of Congress often complain that the Bush administration ignores them, so now would be a great time for them to speak up about our next move in Iraq. That assumes, of course, that they have something to say besides complaining.

Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News.