WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Senate Democrats narrowly defeated an effort Tuesday to strip timetables for withdrawal out of the Iraq war spending legislation.

The move, on a 50-48 vote, sets up a certain showdown with President Bush, who has said repeatedly he will veto any war spending measure that includes timetables for withdrawal.

“This is a civil war. It’s turned into an intractable civil war,” Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said before the vote. “The president must change course, and this legislation will allow him to do that.”

Democrats were aided by two senators who earlier this month opposed a resolution that contained similar timetables. Republican Chuck Hagel and Democrat Ben Nelson, both of Nebraska, voted against timetables earlier but switched their vote Tuesday to support them.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, said Tuesday he hopes to finish the bill as quickly as possible so Bush can veto it and Congress can begin anew efforts to continue funding the war in Iraq.

“My goal is to get through the process as quickly as possible because we may have to go through it all over again,” McConnell told reporters. Hill staffers, meanwhile, are even more confident that Democratic leaders will stick the language back into the bill.

Republicans, in debate leading up to Tuesday’s vote, have taken to referring to the timetables as the “surrender date.”

“This bill should be named the Date Certain for Surrender Act,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.. “A second-year cadet at West Point will tell you if you announce to the enemy that you’re leaving, it’s a recipe for defeat.”

Bush also has threatened a veto because of the roughly $20 billion in domestic “pork” that both the House and the Senate have stuffed into the “emergency” war spending bill.

The Senate version includes $100 million for the 2008 presidential nominating conventions, $13 million for replacement and retention of female sheep, $24 million for sugar beets farmers and $95 million for dairy producers.

Reid defended the added expenditures.

“It’s easy to pinpoint specific things in this bill that people think is so-called pork,” he said.

Anything still in the bill “that really is bad” will be nixed this week, Reid said. “But at this stage, the bill has been scrubbed real hard.”

churt@dcexaminer.com