By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. Congress pressed on Thursday for a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, ignoring White House threats of a presidential veto on any bill that ties nearly $100 billion in combat funds to a 2008 pullout. The U.S. House of Representatives was set to begin debate on legislation to bring all American combat troops out of Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008. A vote is expected by Friday. Anticipating that debate, the White House issued another in a string of strong warnings. "The one (bill) they are considering has zero chance of being enacted into law. It's bad legislation, the president's going to veto it and Congress will sustain that veto," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. But Democratic leaders kept scrambling to nail down the 218 votes they need in the House to pass the bill, which funds U.S. combat in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. "We will no longer be a rubber stamp for a failing policy that has cost us so much in blood and treasure," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said before the debate. House Republicans were expected to overwhelmingly oppose the legislation because of the troop withdrawal timetable and other conditions being placed on the funds. "This is just the opening round of several months of discussions," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said, predicting that in the end Congress would provide the money without conditions. Boehner said passage of the Democrats' plan to withdraw troops from Iraq "will without question lead to failure" there. SENATE PANEL'S DEADLINE Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Appropriations Committee was poised to send to the full Senate its version of a funding bill setting a March 31, 2008, goal for ending the Iraq war, now in its fifth year. Congress is trying to finish the emergency war-funding bill by next month, when the Pentagon says it will run out of money to keep about 140,000 troops in Iraq. But experts think the Defense Department could continue the war into May or June while Congress and Bush fight over the direction of the war. Democrats want to provide Bush the money he has requested, and maybe more, to continue fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and into 2008. But given sagging public support for the Iraq war and the November 2006 elections that were seen as a repudiation of Republicans' handling of it, Democrats are hard-pressed to simply give Bush the money without the conditions. If they ultimately fail in this attempt to end the war, Democrats are expected to target other bills this year for troop withdrawal proposals. To attract support, House leaders have attached billions of dollars to the war-funding bill for domestic priorities, including helping farmers, giving veterans better health care and rebuilding southern states devastated by 2005 hurricanes. That has pumped up the price tag to $124.1 billion and made it harder for some wavering lawmakers to vote no. The Senate version is slightly less expensive, at nearly $121.6 billion. Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Congress already has provided about $500 billion for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. At least 70 percent has been spent for the war in Iraq, CBO said. Since Bush's January order for 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq, there have been reports of diminishing violence in Baghdad. But U.S. military leaders have said insurgents could focus their efforts elsewhere in the country. (Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
