IMPEACH BUSH

WASHINGTON — Citing the mounting casualties and lack of tangible progress in Iraq, a sharply divided Senate voted Tuesday in favor of setting a timetable that would give President Bush four months to begin withdrawing American troops.

The Senate withdrawal provision, which sets a March 31, 2008, target for ending combat operations, is tucked into a $122 billion package to finance U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a must-pass bill that Democrats view as their best shot at forcing Bush to change direction in Iraq.

The withdrawal language, which was narrowly upheld on a 50-48 vote Tuesday, was nearly identical to a Senate resolution that had failed by a 50-48 vote two weeks ago.

Tuesday's vote centered on a Republican amendment that would have stripped out the timetable language from the emergency funding bill. The bill's timetable would require troop redeployments to begin in Iraq no later than 120 days after the measure is enacted. It also would set a nonbinding goal of having most U.S. combat forces out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.

The defection of a prominent Republican war critic, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, sealed the Democrats' win Tuesday. Hagel, who had opposed identical withdrawal language two weeks ago, walked onto the Senate floor an hour before the late afternoon vote and announced he could "not support sustaining a flawed and failing policy."

"It's now time for the Congress to step forward and establish responsible boundaries and conditions for our continued military involvement in Iraq," said Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and potential 2008 presidential candidate.

Two other senators who crossed party lines were Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who also supported the timetable, and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who opposed the Democratic plan. Pryor said he would only support a timeline if the date were kept secret.

Republicans who opposed the timetable said it was tantamount to setting "a surrender date," as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put it.

"Setting a date for withdrawal is like sending a memo to our enemies that tells them to rest, refit and replan until the day we leave," he said. "It's a memo to our friends, too, telling them we plan to walk away and leave them on their own, regardless of what we leave behind."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, "This bill currently undermines the ability of our commanders on the ground to actually succeed in the goal that they volunteered to do because it sets artificial timelines and attempts to micromanage the fighting of the war on the ground."

The defeat of the GOP amendment means the Iraq timetable provision, contained in a similar piece of legislation passed last week by the House, will probably remain in the spending bill as it proceeds through the Senate during the next several days.

Bush has vowed to veto the legislation if it arrives on his desk with timetables attached. Democrats are unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority in either house that they'd need to override his veto.

Still, the vote presents Bush with a fresh challenge, forcing the White House to reject the will of the Senate majority and placing him in the awkward position of using his presidential veto to block not only the Iraq timetable requirement but also the money he has stressed is needed to support U.S. troops in harm's way.

"The president is disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said shortly after the vote.

Earlier she said it is time for Congress instead to rally behind the president's plan to increase U.S. troop levels as part of a spring offensive meant to reduce sectarian bloodshed in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

"The goal is to make sure that we can stabilize Baghdad, especially, so that the politicians in Baghdad can do the work that they need to do in order to reconcile politically and get the economic engine going, so that the security situation can not only stabilize in Baghdad, but then spread throughout the country," Perino said.

But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said during the Senate's heated floor debate that "what we have seen in Iraq is the worst foreign policy mistake of our time."

"We have given to the Iraqi nation more than any other nation could have asked for in the world," Durbin said. "Now it is time for us to make clear to the Iraqi people it is their country, it is their war, it is their future."

bdeans@coxnews.com.

Additional material from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers.