WASHINGTON - The deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons yesterday gave President Bush a break from mounting U.S. casualties and growing doubts about his rationale for war but did not silence his critics or solve his problems in Iraq.

Bush's critics have not questioned whether the U.S. military could kill Iraqis; rather, they have accused the President of distorting evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States and its interests, one requiring a preemptive war. Critics also have called for Bush to seek more help from allies in policing postwar Iraq rather than having U.S. troops shoulder so much of the load.

The deaths of Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, are unlikely to silence the President's critics on either point unless Iraqi resistance to the American occupation ends with their deaths. And even Bush's supporters cautioned that the sons' demise was unlikely to end Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops or resistance to the occupation.

"We have to have some patience," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R., Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "People should be cheered, but this is not a short run but a long run."

Democratic critics of the President's Iraq policy acknowledged the deaths of Hussein's sons as a welcome development but tempered their praise for the job done by American troops by continuing to criticize the administration's occupation of Iraq.

"No one can underestimate the value of the developments today," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) said. "But I would simply say that what many of us have said from the beginning is that in order to win the peace, we need more help. We need more resources; we need more personnel; we need more international involvement. This doesn't change that."

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D., Ill.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and one of the Bush administration's most persistent critics on Iraq, said the deaths did not end the danger American troops were facing.

"If they're any inspiration to the guerrillas, I'm glad they're gone," Durbin said. "The sad reality is that our troops are still in a dangerous situation. We can expect, unfortunately, more bad news."

White House officials have become increasingly concerned that public unease about problems in postwar Iraq could hurt Bush's prospects for reelection in 2004, and his approval ratings in polls have slipped.

In a series of meetings yesterday on Capitol Hill, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, sought to reassure lawmakers that the rebuilding effort was on track.

The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, John W. Warner (R., Va.), said Bremer made a strong case that the United States was making good progress stabilizing Iraq. But Bremer outlined the "magnitude of the problems ahead," including providing electricity to the country, Warner said.

Despite the good news from Iraq, White House officials were still trying to quell the controversy over the President's State of the Union address in January, holding another briefing to explain Bush's use of flawed intelligence in the speech.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley joined CIA Director George Tenet in taking the blame for Bush's statement citing British intelligence that Iraq had shopped in Africa for uranium that could be used in a nuclear bomb.

Administration officials concede that the assertion was questionable and should not have been used as a reason for war.

The relatively restrained response from Republicans to yesterday's developments in Iraq belied the concern that had been building within the party about the toll the Democrats' attacks were taking on Bush. Republican leaders were concerned enough that on Monday, they launched a counteroffensive to rebut the criticism.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett urged Republican lawmakers to defend the President's record, and the incoming Republican National Committee chairman, Ed Gillespie, sent a memo to GOP congressional leaders that accused Democrats of a "passive, reactive approach" to the war on terrorism that "would put America's fate in the hands of people who seek to destroy us."

In an interview yesterday morning with the Washington Post, Gillespie contended that Bush's opponents were seeking a standard of absolute proof that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He called that a "frightening foreign-policy position" that would be rejected by the American people.

Reached late yesterday afternoon by the Post, Gillespie called the confirmation of the killings "a very tangible sign of the success of our policies," but, reflecting the caution within GOP circles, declined to restate his direct criticism of the Democrats.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff said the killing of Hussein's sons "breaks the news cycle" that had put the President on the defensive. "We can have a broader discussion about the future and security of Iraq," he said, "and that broader discussion helps the President."