The Senate today gave final approval to a $124 billion war spending bill that requires troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, with a goal of ending U.S. combat operations there by next March.
President Bush has pledged to veto the bill, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino promised this morning he would act "very soon."
The Senate approved the measure by a 51-46 vote, a day after the House passed the bill by 218-208, brushing aside weeks of angry White House rhetoric and veto threats.
"It is time to end the loss of American lives and to begin to bring our soldiers home," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said on Senate floor this morning. "For the sake of our troops we cannot repeat the mistakes of Vietnam and allow this to drag on long after the American people know it's a mistake."
Today's vote completes work on the rarest of bills: legislation to try to end a major war as fighting still rages. Democrats hope to send the measure to the White House on Monday, almost exactly four years after President Bush declared an end to major combat in a speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That would be a particularly pungent political anniversary for Bush to deliver only the second veto of his presidency.
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