A defiant Democratic-controlled US Senate passed legislation on Thursday that would require the start of US troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President George W. Bush on the war.
At the White House, the president immediately promised a veto.
"It is amazing that legislation urgently needed to fund our troops took 80 days to make its way around the Capitol. But that's where we are," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
"I just spoke to the president in the Oval Office and, as he said he would for weeks, the president will veto this legislation," Perino said.
The 51 to 46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto.
Nevertheless, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.
"The president has failed in his mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq," said Senator Robert Byrd, Democratic chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
The US$124.2 billion bill requires troop withdrawals to begin Oct. 1, or sooner if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks. The House passed the measure on Wednesday by a 218 to 208 vote.
Republicans said the vote amounted to little more than political theater because the bill would be dead on arrival after reaching the White House. Bush said he would veto the bill if it contains a timetable on Iraq, as well as US$20 billion in spending added by Democrats.
"The solution is simple: Take out the surrender date, take out the pork, and get the funds to our troops," Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.
Republicans Gordon Smith and Chuck Hagel sided with 48 Democrats and Independent Bernard Sanders in supporting the bill. No Democrats joined the 45 Republicans in voting against it.
Missing from the vote were Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both staunch advocates of the president's Iraq policy.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, sided with Republicans in opposing the bill.
The bill was on track to arrive on the president's desk by Tuesday, the anniversary of Bush's announcement aboard the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on," Bush said on May 1, 2003, in front of a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner.
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