SETTING the stage for a direct confrontation with President George Bush, the US Senate has voted in favour of a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

The 50-48 vote turned aside a Republican bid to strip the timelines from a $US122 billion ($152 billion) emergency spending bill to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With Republicans unexpectedly giving up plans to block the bill, the Senate appears ready to pass it as soon as today.

With the House of Representatives having approved its own timetable last week, congressional Democrats are now close to presenting the President with a stark choice: veto the essential war funding or negotiate directly with war critics.

"He doesn't get everything he wants now, so I think it's time that he started working with us," said the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, a chief architect of the Democratic campaign to pressure the President to alter his war policy. "The President must change course."