By Josh Rogin Congressional Quarterly
Published: 04-11-08
President Bush on Thursday fired back at congressional Democrats considering restrictions on his Iraq policy saying he will again veto any supplemental spending bill that contains withdrawal time lines or extra funding he did not request.
The president as expected ordered a halt to U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after July accepting the recommendation of Gen. David H. Petraeus commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Bush also said he would cut Army deployments from 15 months to 12 months.
“We should be able to agree that this is a burden worth bearing. And we should be able to agree that our national interests require the success of our mission in Iraq” Bush said.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy D-Mass. criticized the president’s move saying it was “abundantly clear that President Bush is simply trying to ‘run out the clock’ and hand off the mess to the next president. Giving General Petraeus ‘all the time he needs’ is more of the same open-ended commitment the American people have rejected.”
Bush last year vetoed a fiscal 2007 supplemental spending bill that carried war policy riders and funding he did not want (HR 1591). The House sustained his May 1 veto a day later by 222-203 and Congress subsequently sent him a revised bill that he signed into law (PL 110-28) on May 25.
Bush said a fiscal 2008 supplemental spending bill should not include unrelated funding or exceed the $108 billion outstanding balance from his original $196.4 billion request for the year that ends Sept. 30.
House Democrats are considering three potential war policy riders to the upcoming supplemental setting up what is likely to be another doomed fight with Bush and his Republican allies in Congress.
With their eyes on the November elections several Democratic appropriators said Wednesday they expect the upcoming bill to include withdrawal time lines for U.S. troops in Iraq a requirement that troops be given time at home equal to the length of their deployments and language expanding existing prohibitions against torture to all government agencies including the CIA.
The proposed House provisions resemble war policy measures that have passed before but died in the Senate where Democrats hold a much narrower 51-49 majority. That included bills last year containing language that would require redeployment from Iraq to begin within 120 days of enactment and be completed within nine months.
Meanwhile both the House and the Senate will hold floor votes in the coming weeks to codify Bush’s announcement of shorter deployments equal to the time they have at home between tours.
“Allow us to codify this and make it the law of the land” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid D-Nev. said.
The House in August passed a measure (HR 3159) to do just that but the idea has failed twice in the Senate once in July and again in September amid Republican opposition.
