Washington, July 18: The Senate approved a $368.6 billion defence spending bill after Republicans beat back a new Democratic push for an examination of how the White House handled intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs. The bill is $3.1 billion below President George W Bush's budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, and represents a Defence Department budget increase of slightly more than 1 per cent. That does not count a $62.4 billion emergency spending bill passed earlier this year to cover the cost of war in Iraq.

Congress is expected to make up the $3.1 billion in separate legislation.
The bill largely meets Bush's budget request and the 95-0 vote yesterday showed Democratic reluctance to challenge his defence priorities.
But Democrats used three days of debate to press unsuccessfully for investigations of the administration's handling of pre-war intelligence that go beyond the reviews under way by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Bureau Report