Senate Votes to Maintain Iraq Timetable: Coleman, Klobuchar Split

By a 48-50 vote, the U.S. Senate rejected a Republican amendment that would have stripped language setting a withdrawal timetable from an Iraq War funding bill.

Minnesota’s two senators both voted with the majority of their respective parties.  Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., voted in favor of the amendment, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., voted against it.

The vote left intact language that would set a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations in Iraq by March 31, 2008.  The House of Representatives last week passed a similar measure that included a hard deadline for withdrawal of August 31, 2008.  The two bills will have to be reconciled in a conference committee, but the final measure will almost certainly include some sort of timetable for the end of the Iraq War.

The vote was largely party-line, with most Democrats opposing the amendment, and most Republicans supporting it.  Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., was the lone Democrat supporting the amendment, while Sens. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., opposed it.  The Senate’s two independents split, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., voting against the amendment and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., voting for it.

President George W. Bush has threatened to veto any measure that includes a timetable for withdrawal.