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House passes Iraq withdrawal timetable

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Moving closer to a veto showdown with President Bush, the House late Wednesday narrowly approved a bill funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that sets a goal of withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq next year.

The final vote on the $124 billion funding bill was 218-208, with two members voting present. The tally was largely along party lines, with just two Republicans voting for it and 13 Democrats voting against.

The Senate will take up the bill Thursday morning, setting up a likely confrontation with Bush, who has repeatedly vowed to veto any appropriations measure that contains a timetable for withdrawing troops.

Reacting to the House vote, White House spokeswoman Dana Petrino said the bill was "disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war."

"Tonight, the House of Representatives voted for failure in Iraq, and the president will veto its bill," she said in a statement.

Before Wednesday's vote, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, came to Capitol Hill for a series of private briefings, during which he argued against setting a timetable, according to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who attended. But Democratic leaders critical of Bush's Iraq policy were unmoved.

"Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters after the meeting. "President Bush wants this Congress to simply give the stamp of approval of the request he has made. The American public, however, expect this Congress to make policy and to articulate its views."

Anticipating a close vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi skipped Wednesday's briefing with Petraeus to lobby for passage, a Democratic aide with knowledge of her schedule told CNN. Instead, she had a phone conversation with the general Tuesday night.

Headed into the vote, House Democratic leaders worried that some of the more strongly antiwar members in their caucus could balk at the bill, which was a compromise hammered out Monday with their counterparts in the Senate.

The House had originally called for a binding deadline of removing combat troops by August 2008, but the Senate passed less stringent language setting out a goal of getting combat troops out of Iraq no later than March 2008. House leaders eventually agreed to adopt the Senate's language, in an effort to get the bill through Congress and to Bush's desk.

The 13 Democrats who broke ranks were a nearly equal mix of antiwar members, such as Reps. John Lewis of Georgia and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and so-called Blue Dog moderates, such as Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia and Jim Matheson of Utah.

The two Republicans who supported the bill were Reps. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina. The two members voting present were Reps. Jo Ann Emerson, a Republican from Missouri, and Pete Stark, a California Democrat.

The margin of victory for the bill in the House was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush's veto.

Without the additional appropriations, the Pentagon will soon have to begin shifting money and deferring some projects to find the funds to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although just when that situation might become critical is a matter of dispute between the White House and Democrats in Congress.

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