The U.S. Senate went on record for the first time Tuesday in favor of a withdrawal date from Iraq, with Democrats squeaking out the votes they needed to formally rebuff George W. Bush’s disastrous Iraq war policy.

By a vote of 51-47, the Senate rejected Republican efforts to strip any mention of a withdrawal date from a key military spending bill.

The legislation will now move forward with a provision to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq within 120 days of the measure’s enactment, with a non-binding goal of pulling out by March 31, 2008.

“When it comes to the war in Iraq, the American people have spoken, the House and Senate have spoken,” said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “Now, we hope the president is listening.”

According to the Honolulu Advertiser, 48 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont were joined by two Republicans, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon, in voting for the measure. Opposed were 46 Republicans and Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman.

Last Friday, in a huge victory (if only symbolic) for Nancy Pelosi and the new Democratic majority, the House voted 218 to 212 for a binding measure requiring most troops be brought home by September 2008.

A few minutes after the vote in the Senate, the White House repeated its vow to veto any legislation containing a withdrawal date. The Senate’s actions increase the likelihood that Congress and Bush will engage in a confrontation over Iraq war policy - specifically its financing.

The outcome of the Senate vote took both parties by surprise. Republicans were stung by the defection of Hagel, who has not in the past supported a timetable for withdrawal (although he is his party’s most outspoken critic of the Iraq war in Congress).

“There will not be a military solution to Iraq,” Hagel said. “Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. It doesn’t belong to the United States. Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost.”

The Democrats also gained the vote of Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, who voted against a withdrawal date just two weeks ago.

“People want our troops home,” Nelson said.

The Senate vote was seen as a victory for Democrats, including Harry Reid and Joe Biden (pictured below) if only because the GOP already agreed to not block the bill by mounting a filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome.

Republican leaders have said they preferred to allow Bush to veto the bill, rather than use procedural maneuvers to block the measure, which would provide $122 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Continue reading in the New York Times …