A showdown between Congress and the White House looms over a supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote later today or tonight on a bill reached during negotiations with the Senate. It’s a bill that would require the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by October 1st.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) says this is only a date for the beginning of redeployment. She adds the bill does not make a lot of other dates that are etched in stone. The $124.2-Billion bill does set a non-binding goal of completing the pullout by April 1st, 2008.

McCaskill says American troops in Iraq have become both defenders and targets of the various factions in that country. She says it’s time to send a message to the Iraqi government that the U.S. cannot wait forever for Iraq to begin functioning as a country.

The showdown would come if and when the bill is sent to President Bush. He has promised to veto any bill that includes troop withdrawal deadlines.

Download/Listen: Senator Claire McCaskill (:21 MP3)