April 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Senate may give final approval today to a $124.2 billion war spending measure calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, legislation that's likely to draw the second veto of President George W. Bush's administration.

The House approved the measure 218-208 last night, well short of the two-thirds margin needed to override a veto. Bush has said he won't sign any measure with a timeline for withdrawal. The Senate vote is likely to fall short of the veto- proof threshold as well.

``Hopefully, after the bill is vetoed, we can get the second bill finished very rapidly, because delay is really a serious problem,'' Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said yesterday. ``We need to get the money to troops.''

Congressional Democrats are tying a withdrawal from Iraq to funding for the war as a way to pressure Bush to change course. After Bush's veto, they will probably drop the withdrawal language in favor of political and security benchmarks for the Iraqi government said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat.

``The purpose of what we're doing is to keep the pressure on the president and also on the Iraqi leaders,'' said Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ``The people of the United States do not support an open-ended commitment.''

A Goal

The measure requires the troop withdrawal to begin this year and sets a goal of completing it by April 2008. Democrats opposed to the war who favored a hard deadline for withdrawal said they supported the measure to press for changes in Iraq policy and avoid a political defeat.

Thirteen Democrats voted against the party-backed plan and two Republicans, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina, backed it.

After Senate passage today, Democrats said they will send the measure to Bush next week, likely putting it on his desk May 1, the fourth anniversary of Bush's declaration aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln that ``major combat operations'' in Iraq were over.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized the timing.

``If it is the case that they withheld money for the troops in order to play some ridiculous PR stunt, that is the height of cynicism,'' she said today.

Perino last night reiterated that Bush will veto the legislation, saying that it includes ``a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.''

The Senate vote, set for about midday, will come a day after the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army General David Petraeus, told lawmakers that the U.S. troop buildup has achieved some success, reducing sectarian murders in Baghdad to one-third the level in January.

`Sensational'

Petraeus also said that al-Qaeda's continued ability ``to conduct horrific, sensational'' car-bomb attacks represented a setback for the security plan. Petraeus spoke with reporters after holding closed-door sessions with members of the House and Senate in the Capitol.

Describing other advances, Petraeus said U.S. forces recently detained the head of an Iraqi network that produces lethal projectile bombs using materials obtained from Iran.

Petraeus said Anbar province, where the Sunni insurgency is centered, has gone in six months from ``being lost to a situation that is now quite heartening'' because Sunni tribes have joined with the U.S. to fight al-Qaeda there.

``We are actually ahead of where I wanted to be in some areas, and probably behind where we might have hoped to be in some other areas,'' he said.

`No Optimism'

Levin said he had heard nothing ``which would give me any optimism that they are on the verge of a political settlement in Iraq,'' which he called a precondition for any real progress.

Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said Congress must approve a war spending measure that Bush can sign.

``It is critical that we move forward to get the funding to these troops and enable them to carry out the mission that we've sent them to carry out so that when General Petraeus comes back in September he'll be able to give us, hopefully, an optimistic report,'' Kyl told reporters.

In addition to money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the legislation would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour from $5.15. The increase, the first in almost a decade, would come in three 70-cent installments over 26 months. The first would come 60 days after the measure's enactment. Lawmakers paired the increase with $4.84 billion in tax cuts for small businesses to help them cope with the higher minimum wage.

Agricultural Assistance

The measure provides $3.5 billion in agricultural assistance, $3.5 billion for states hit by Hurricane Katrina and $650 million for a children's health insurance program.

The legislation would allow states such as New Jersey to trump the chemical safety regulations announced earlier this month by the Department of Homeland Security with their own more stringent rules. It would postpone for one year the administration's plans to cut Medicaid payments to hospitals by $3.87 billion over the next five years. It would also block an administration initiative to allow a limited number of Mexican trucks onto American highways.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 26, 2007 11:58 EDT