United States President George Bush said on Tuesday US troops would suffer if a deadlock with Congress over war funding continues, scolding US lawmakers for going on holiday leaving business unfinished.
If Congress did not approve a war funding Bill, ”if they do not change course in the coming weeks, the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones”, Bush told reporters.
”The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops on the front line also means that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines,” Bush said.
”And others can see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to. That is unacceptable to me, and I believe it is unacceptable to the American people.”
Bush renewed his vow on Tuesday to use his presidential powers to veto a Bill that ties funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a timetable to end the US presence in Iraq.
On Monday Senate Democrats raised the stakes in the bitter fight, unveiling a new bid to cut off nearly all funding for the Iraq war after March 31 2008 if Bush vetoes the Bill they plan to submit to the White House.
Co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Russ Feingold, the new Democrat measure would cut funding for most Iraq war operations after March 31 2008, the date already set as a goal for withdrawal of most combat troops in the war budget Bill passed by the Senate.
It would permit funding only for operations against al-Qaeda, training and equipping Iraqi troops and protecting US personnel and installations.
But Bush hit out at US lawmakers for being irresponsible, and urged Congress to make good on its pledges of support for US troops.
”Congress’s most basic responsibilities [are] to give our troops the equipment and training they need to fight our enemies and to protect our nation. They’re now failing in that responsibility,” the president said.
”Now they have left Washington for spring recess without finishing the work. Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq.”
Democrats plan to officially unveil the new legislation on April 10 when the Senate returns from its Easter break.
”If the president vetoes the supplemental appropriations Bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period,” Senator Reid said Monday.
Feingold added in an email message to supporters that the bill would use ”Congress’s constitutional ‘power of the purse’ authority to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq by March 31 2008”.
”Our Bill funds the troops, it just de-funds the war,” he said.
But it is a high-stakes poker game: Democrats who swept to power in November elections still lack the large majorities in the two-chamber Congress needed to overcome a Bush veto, and they are depending on widespread fatigue over the war to keep the public on their side.
The White House, however, is playing strongly to the public as well, declaring that Congress is denying US soldiers adequate funding to do their jobs, and giving the enemy a timetable to take over.
Vice-President Dick Cheney warned on Monday the United States faced defeat in Iraq if Democrats succeed in imposing withdrawal.
”It’s time the self-appointed strategists on Capitol Hill understood a very simple concept: you cannot win a war if you tell the enemy you’re going to quit,” Cheney said in prepared remarks.
”When members of Congress speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, or other arbitrary measures, they’re telling the enemy to simply watch the clock and wait us out,” he charged. — AFP
