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This is the homepage. WASHINGTON, March 29 — Issuing a stinging challenge to President Bush, the Senate approved a spending measure today that provided more than $97.5 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but ordered troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 120 days and set a goal of removing most armed forces within a year.
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Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

President Bush, with House Minority Leader John Boehner and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, after meeting with House Republicans.
The Reach of War
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The Vote in the Senate

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Jamie Rose for The New York Times

Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Democratic whip, says his party is building political momentum.

Democrats, preparing for a veto fight, immediately sought to paint the president as obstinate in the face of broad public sentiment against the war. They said he would be the one abandoning American forces should he reject a final bill that lawmakers expected to produce in a few weeks.

“If the president vetoes this bill, it is an asterisk in history,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, after a vote of 51 to 47 on the measure. “He sets the record for undermining the troops more than any president we have ever had.”

But Mr. Bush was not wavering. He stood on the North Portico of the White House, flanked by Republican House leaders, and delivered his veto threat one more time.

“We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we’ve got a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded,” he said. “And we’ve got commanders making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders. And that we expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money.”

Two Republicans, Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, joined 49 Democrats in backing the measure, which totaled $123 billion when money for Gulf Coast hurricane relief, agricultural assistance and other domestic projects was added. The bill also includes the Democratic plan to raise the minimum wage by $2.15 over two years.

Mr. Reid promised that negotiators would quickly begin to reconcile the new Senate measure with a version narrowly passed by the House last week and have a bill ready to be approved and sent to the president soon after the House returned from its spring break on April 16. The administration has said the military needs the money by April 15, and the White House said Thursday that the Pentagon was already having to juggle accounts, shifting money from one program to another to buy more vehicles better able to withstand mines.

Dana Perino, the deputy White House spokeswoman, said, “This, again, underscores the need to get the show on the road, get the bill to the president, he will veto it, and then, we’ll take it from there.”

Democrats said the president was at fault there as well, saying he took too long to send his financing request to Congress. They also dismissed Republican complaints that they were micromanaging military policy, saying that Congress had Constitutional authority equal to that of the executive branch and that Democrats were forced to intercede because of Mr. Bush’s refusal to heed public demands for withdrawing forces.

“It begins to return Iraq to the Iraqi people and to return our troops home,” Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said about the legislation.

Republicans said the measure was a colossal mistake that tells insurgent forces in Iraq when American troops will begin leaving.

“We are sending mixed messages to the world, we are sending mixed messages to our allies, we are sending a clear message to our enemies: when the times get too tough, America’s going to walk away regardless of what’s going on on the ground,” said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the chairwoman of the Republican Policy Committee. “We’re putting a bull’s-eye on our troops with boots on the ground.”

Though both the House and Senate have now called for military exits from Iraq, they must resolve significant differences between their approaches.

The Senate measure, saying American troops “should not be policing a civil war,” directs Mr. Bush to begin moving troops out of the country within 120 days of the measure becoming law, “with the goal of redeploying, by March 31, 2008, all United States combat forces.”

The House measure ties its push for withdrawal to the ability of the Iraqi government to meet certain objectives but is more definitive about a pull-out, calling for most troops to be removed by Sept. 1, 2008. The bills differ in many details as well.

Representative David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said today that he was confident that lawmakers in the two chambers would reach agreement and that he expected Mr. Bush would ultimately make a deal with Congress.

“Nicaragua ended with a compromise,” Mr. Obey said today, while walking to his office after casting a vote. “El Salvador ended with a compromise. Vietnam did, too. The president will compromise.”

Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has led the push for a new Iraq policy, said that simply responding to American public sentiment was reason enough for the Bush administration to at least try to negotiate with Congress.

“This will take a lot of conversation with the White House, the Defense Department, unless they don’t want to negotiate,” Mr. Murtha said in an interview, playing down the veto threat. “That’s always the way it sounds, but it seldom ends up that way.”

For all the public confrontation between the president and the Democratic leaders of Congress, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Bush chatted amicably this afternoon in the Capitol rotunda during a ceremony honoring the Tuskegee Airmen. Among the topics, aides later said, was the Iraq spending bill and how they intend to break their deadlock.

— anxietyfilms