The End Of The Iraq War Is Now In Sight.

Defying the veto threat from the White House, the Senate has joined the House in setting a pull out date in the Iraq War.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 50-48 to call for a withdrawal from Iraq in the war spending bill. The Senate version of the bill calls for the US to pull out of Iraq by next spring, sooner than the House bill proposed, which called for a pull out to be completed by September of 2008.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said, “Setting a date for withdrawal is like sending a memo to our enemies that tells them to rest, refit and replan until the day we leave.”

However Senator Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the move would bring “the worse foreign policy mistake of our time” to a close. “Now it’s time for us to make it clear to the Iraqis it is their country. It is their war. It is their future,” he said.

President Bush denounced the House bill on Friday as “political theater”. While the Democrats don’t look like they have the votes to overturn a veto of the bill, the veto would also prevent any new funding for the war. This puts the White House in a sticky situation with the new Democratic Majority in Congress. The only question is: who will blink first?