WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase security on the nation's borders and give the Coast Guard new boats and helicopters.

Senators also ignored a White House veto threat and overwhelmingly voted against cutting a $106.5 billion measure funding Iraq, further hurricane relief for the Gulf Coast and a slew of add-ons opposed by fiscal conservatives and Bush.

And in a nail-biting 49-48 vote that tested lawmakers' loyalties, senators voted with Mississippi's powerful GOP delegation to keep alive a controversial $700 million project to relocate a rail line along the Mississippi coast so the state can build a new east-west highway.

The project has become a cause celebre among conservative activists, who say it's a boondoggle. Lawmakers were clearly torn between voting for it or offending Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

“I just don't think it's an emergency and I don't think taxpayers ought to be paying for it,” said Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who led the effort to kill the project. Generally, more senior senators supported Cochran, regardless of party loyalties.

On border security, the Senate voted 59-39 for a plan to cut Bush's Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego.

While the border security funds had broad support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war spending would harm troops in Iraq. The cuts, sought by Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would trim Bush's request for the war by almost 3 percent, but he doesn't specify how.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said Gregg's cuts would “take money from troop pay, body armor and even the joint improvised explosive device defeat fund. Now that is a false choice and it is a wrong choice.”

Gregg argued that the cuts eventually would come from other parts of the massive Pentagon budget rather than U.S. forces in Iraq.

“To come down here and allege that these funds are going to come out of the needs of the people on the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan is pure poppycock,” he said.

An amendment by Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to add the border security funds but not tap the Pentagon for them failed by a 54-44 vote.

The Senate voted by a veto-proof 72-26 margin to kill an attempt by conservatives to cut the overall bill back to Bush's request - just a day after the White House issued a toughly worded promise to veto the $106.5 billion bill unless it is cut back to below $95 billion.

But 35 Senate Republicans signed a letter promising to sustain a veto in the unlikely event it would come to that, increasing pressure on headstrong appropriators to hew to Bush's demands during House-Senate talks next month.

“The Appropriations Committee in the Senate is out of control, out of control on spending,” said John Ensign, R-Nev.

Cochran, the key architect of the bill, is unhappy with the veto threat and easily beat back a move by Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., to kill $12 billion in add-ons, such as $4 billion in farm aid, $1.1 billion for Gulf Coast fisheries and the much-criticized Mississippi rail line relocation.

Mississippi GOP Gov. Haley Barbour came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby for the rail relocation project. The rail line, owned by CSX Transportation, has been rebuilt with insurance proceeds at a cost of nearly $300 million.

Bush insists that total spending in the bill be capped at his $92.2 billion request for Iraq and hurricane relief, though he is willing to accept $2.3 billion in the bill to prevent an outbreak of avian flu.

Gregg chairs the Appropriations Homeland Security subcommittee. His border security plan focuses on the capital needs of the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, including new planes, helicopters, ships and communications equipment.

Gregg said his plan would “give the people who are defending us on our borders, the border security agents, the Custom agents, the Coast Guard, the tools they need to do their job right - the unmanned vehicles, the cars, the helicopters which are a critical part of our fight in the war on terrorism. It has to be done now.”

The underlying bill contains $67.6 billion for Pentagon war operations and $27.1 billion for hurricane relief, including grants to states to build and repair housing and $2.1 billion for levees and flood control projects. The funding for hurricane relief exceeds Bush's request by $7.4 billion.