WASHINGTON, March 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate Democrats won a key vote on Tuesday that clears the way for setting a date by which most U.S. troops would be required to leave Iraq, CBS News reported.
Democrats defeated by a vote of 50-48 the Republican effort to strip language from the 122 billion-U.S. dollar Iraq supplemental spending bill that will require most combat soldiers to leave Iraq within a year, according to the report.
Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith voted with the Democrats.
The victory likely will be symbolic because U.S. President George W. Bush said he will veto the legislation.
Moreover, Democrats are unsure if they would prevail until the end of the vote.
"We don't know how it's going to turn out," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. "We won't know until the vote's over."
He added that the legislation is "supported by the vast majority of the American people."
The House has already passed legislation requires troops to be withdrawn by Sept. 1 next year.
BAGHDAD, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The death toll rose to at least 35 when two car bombs rocked Iraq's northern town of Tal Afar on Tuesday, injuring some 50 others, a police source from nearby Mosul told Xinhua.
Earlier sources said that 15 people were killed and more than 30 others wounded in town of Tal Afar, some 70 km west of Mosul. Full story
WASHINGTON, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said he had held talks last year with representatives of major Sunni insurgent groups in a drive to bring them into politics, the New York Times reported Monday.
"There were discussions with the representatives of various groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well," Khalilzad was quoted as saying. Full story
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