Democrats won their first measure against the Iraq War Wednesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a nonbinding resolution calling the troop increase “not in the national interest.” The final vote was 12 to nine. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was the lone Republican to vote along with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 11 Democrats.

Sen. Chuck Hagel: “There is no strategy. This is a ping pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They’re real lives, and we better be damn sure that we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.”

The resolution is expected to reach the Senate floor next week. At an appearance in Delaware, President Bush repeated calls for bipartisan support.

President Bush: “It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle we sit on. What the American people expect are for people from both sides of the aisle to come together and solve problems.”