posted March 29, 2007 02:59 PM            

WASHINGTON, March 29 — The Senate narrowly approved a war-spending bill today that calls for most American combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008, and in so doing defied a veto threat by President Bush.

The 51-to-47 vote endorsed a $122 billion spending package, most of which would go to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, although some domestic spending is included.

Even as the roll-call was under way, President Bush was meeting with House Republican leaders. Immediately after the meeting, he renewed his pledge to veto any measure “that restricts our commanders on the ground in Iraq,” a fault he sees not only in the Senate bill but in the significantly different House version.

“We stand united,” Mr. Bush said outside the White House with Representatives John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, and Roy Blunt of Missouri, the minority whip. “We expect there to be no strings on our commanders.”

Asserting again that both the House and Senate bills have unnecessary spending tucked into their language, Mr. Bush added, “We expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money.”

The Senate and House bills must now be reconciled through negotiations between the chambers. A key difference is that the Senate bill sets a nonbinding goal for withdrawing troops by March 31, 2008, while the House version demands that they be out by September 2008.

Today’s Senate vote was slightly anticlimactic, in that it was foreshadowed by a similarly narrow vote on Tuesday that rejected a move to strip the withdrawal-date language from the bill. But it was nonetheless politically significant as a reflection of Congressional Democrats’ solidarity against the president’s war policy, even though Democrats do not have enough votes to override Mr. Bush’s veto.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, immediately issued a statement disputing the president’s assertion that the Senate bill, like its House counterpart, is larded with unnecessary spending. “If the president uses his veto pen, he will be the one denying funding for the troops,” Mr. Reid said, adding that the bill includes money needed for homeland security, disaster relief and children’s health care in addition to military needs.

Two Republican senators, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, joined Democrats in voting for the bill today. Their “yes” votes had been expected, since both have been highly critical of the conduct of the war. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who sides with the Democrats on most issues but supports the president on the war, voted against the bill. (Senator Mike Enzi, Republican of Wyoming was absent because of a family illness; Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, is hospitalized.)

With both houses of Congress now firmly on record in favor of withdrawing from Iraq, President Bush has vowed not to negotiate a timetable with Democrats. “Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely,” Mr. Bush told an audience of cattlemen and ranchers on Wednesday. “That’s not going to happen.”

Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats are already deadlocked over the Democrats’ demands for testimony from top White House officials in an inquiry into the firing of federal prosecutors. Now, Mr. Bush is in the difficult position of fighting the new Democratic majority on two fronts, both the war spending and the prosecutors.

On Wednesday, he seemed in no mood to back down from the war spending fight. As he quoted a newspaper editorial — from The Los Angeles Times, though he did not mention it by name — accusing Democrats of “the worst kind of Congressional meddling in military strategy,” Mr. Bush appeared almost eager for a battle. And Democrats seemed eager to give it to him.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House speaker, said Mr. Bush should “calm down with the threats,” and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said his impression was that Mr. Bush “doesn’t want anything other than a confrontation.”

The president has been saying for weeks that he will veto any war spending bill that contains a withdrawal date. He reiterated that threat on Wednesday, taking particular aim at Democrats for loading the military spending bills with unrelated special interest projects above the $100 billion he has asked for the war, including $3.5 million for visitors to “tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works,” and $6.4 million for the House of Representatives’ “salaries and expense accounts.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Mr. Bush said wryly, “but it’s not related to the war and protecting the United States of America.”

Democrats have said they were ready to begin House-Senate negotiations quickly to produce a final version to send to the president. But with Congress scheduled to begin its Easter recess on Friday, it is nearly impossible for lawmakers to produce a final bill before the week of April 16. With Mr. Bush warning that funds will run out on April 15, forcing the Pentagon to draw from other accounts, the two sides seem certain to wind up in a blame game over who is responsible for holding up the money.
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The Reach of War
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The Vote in the Senate

Related
Bush Rules Out Bid by Congress for Iraq Pullout (March 29, 2007)
U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King (March 29, 2007)

The Democratic leaders, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, tried to strike a conciliatory tone, stressing that they would deliver all the money Mr. Bush requested. In a joint letter to the president, they said they stood ready to work with the White House.

“But your threats to veto a bill that has not even been presented to you indicate that you may not be ready to work with us,” the letter said.

While they are hoping to capitalize on Mr. Bush’s unpopularity, Democrats acknowledged privately that they were uncertain how the finger-pointing would play out. Some recalled President Clinton’s success in putting the blame on Republicans for a 1995 government shutdown.

Republicans say Mr. Bush may be unpopular, but his policy of sending additional troops to Iraq may have more support than he does. Despite a recent nationwide telephone poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press in which 59 percent of those who responded said they wanted their lawmakers to vote in favor of a timetable for withdrawal, aides to Mr. Bush say the public is beginning to see improvements on the ground in Iraq and is willing to give Mr. Bush’s troop buildup a chance.

“We hope it doesn’t have to come to this type of brinksmanship, staring down the Congress, but as you saw today the president feels very strongly,” said Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush. “The feedback we’ve been getting from our allies on the Hill — and we agree with them — is that this is an issue we shouldn’t shirk from.”

Democratic officials say the shape of the measure that will be sent to the president remains unclear, but it is almost certain to have some timeline on Iraq, given the votes in both houses. But Democrats also say they intend to pare down some of the nonwar spending in the bill to quiet Republican accusations of pork-barrel politics.

Democrats also acknowledge that even with the unpopularity of the war, they must move carefully. The House bill passed with just 218 votes, the minimum necessary to guarantee passage, and in the Senate, the provision to set a goal of pulling out by March 31, 2008, also passed narrowly on Tuesday, 50 to 48.

“The president does have leverage on the troops, and given the close votes, we have to be cognizant of that,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic caucus. “But we have leverage on the policy and he has to be cognizant of that.”

Republicans say Mr. Bush must move carefully as well. Charlie Black, a Republican strategist who is close to the White House, said the administration could win the argument with the public “if they handle it right and communicate it well.” Republican leaders say they will back Mr. Bush as he tries to make the case to the public that Congress does not have the power to dictate the management of the war.

posted March 29, 2007 05:26 PM            

Yep, bribing congress with taxpayer money. Very, very, very nice.

Never mind, Bush will veto the bill. This is just political posturing by weak kneed democrats who don't have the guts to vote for defunding the Iraq war.

Even the Washington Post recognizes what this is all about.

Washington Post Slams House Democrats For Pork-Laden Iraq Withdrawal Bill
Posted by Noel Sheppard on March 24, 2007
It must have been very chilly in hell on Friday, for the editorial division of a major newspaper actually came down on Democrats.

I kid you not.

For those that missed it, the Washington Post ran an editorial Friday entitled “Retreat and Butter,” with a sub-headline “Are Democrats in the House voting for farm subsidies or withdrawal from Iraq?”

Having asked a tremendously valid question that most in the antiwar media have ignored as the Iraq debate heated up on Capitol Hill this week, the Post surprisingly and accurately answered its own question (better strap yourself in your seat):

TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California. The legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans.

Amazing. But the editorial staff was just getting warmed up (emphasis added throughout):

Altogether the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger: Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August 2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.

Shocked? Astounded? There was more:

The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Yet the leadership is ready to piece together the votes necessary to force a fateful turn in the war by using tactics usually dedicated to highway bills or the Army Corps of Engineers budget. The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States, the outcome of which could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.

The piece marvelously concluded:

Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations. They should not seek to use pork to buy a majority for an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support.

Could you imagine any of the network evening news programs addressing the pork involved in this bill so accurately? Or how about the New York Times, whose editorial the day before completely supported the bill without mentioning a word about the bribery involved (emphasis added):

The House of Representatives now has a chance to lead the nation toward a wiser, more responsible Iraq policy. It is scheduled to vote this week on whether to impose benchmarks for much-needed political progress on the Iraqi government — and link them to the continued presence of American combat forces. The bill also seeks to lessen the intolerable strains on American forces, requiring President Bush to certify that units are fit for battle before sending any troops to Iraq. Both of these requirements are long overdue. The House should vote yes, by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin.

With that in mind, the Post staff is to be commended for getting this one right, and telling its readers the dirty little secret about what the House Democrats are actually doing.

posted March 29, 2007 08:02 PM              

The last thing we have ever needed in America is a maverick president. I am convinced that Bush would lead us all into WWIII and a nuclear holocaust before he would ever admit that he was wrong.

Democrats Challenge Bush

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate said that, by promising a veto, the president was ignoring the will of voters, and the balance of powers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush needed to "calm down" with the threats.

"I wish he would take a deep breath and realize we each have our constitutional role and respect that," she said.

"Both bills contain much needed funding for our troops and our veterans. Both bills also chart a new course forward in Iraq," Pelosi said.

"Given the importance and urgency of this legislation to our troops and our security, we are quite disturbed by your insistence to veto it. Rather than work with the Congress to develop a bill you could sign, you apparently intend to follow a political strategy that would needlessly delay funding for our troops," she said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that Bush needs to "get real with what's going on in the world."

posted March 31, 2007 07:41 AM            

quote:

---

The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Yet the leadership is ready to piece together the votes necessary to force a fateful turn in the war by using tactics usually dedicated to highway bills or the Army Corps of Engineers budget. The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States, the outcome of which could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.

The piece marvelously concluded:

Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations. They should not seek to use pork to buy a majority for an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support.

---