United States President George Bush was readying his veto pen again after US lawmakers voted to fund the Iraq combat in phases of just a few months, the latest twist in the political feud over control of the unpopular war.
The House of Representatives voted by 221 votes to 205 on Thursday to release $43-billion in emergency war funds, but told Bush he must show progress in Iraq in July, before collecting another $53-billion in financing.
”This legislation ends the blank cheque for the president’s war without end,” Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Bush ”has grown accustomed to the free hand on Iraq he had before January 4. Those days are over,” she added.
The legislation now moves to the more closely divided Senate, where the split financing component appears unlikely to survive, lining up an intense round of legislative bartering over the Bill that Bush will be asked to sign.
The Democrat-led House earlier rejected a largely symbolic bid by the majority party’s anti-war block to get troops out of Iraq within six months of enactment.
Bush earlier fought back hard, after Democrats gleefully pounced on signs of softening Republican backing for his last-ditch bid to surge nearly 30 000 more troops into war-scarred Iraq.
”I’ll veto the Bill if it is this haphazard, piecemeal funding, and I made that clear,” he said after visiting the Defence Department.
Even if Bush vetoes it, the measure sets out the House’s bargaining position for the final war-funding Bill, which must be worked out with the Senate and the White House. All parties hope to strike a deal on final terms by the end of May.
Veto
Bush wielded his veto for only the second time last week to strike down a Bill tying war funding to a Democratic timeline to start bringing home 146 000 troops in Iraq in October, from a war that has killed 3 379 of their comrades.
But Democrats sense the president is increasingly vulnerable.
”I think this president is more isolated than any president since Richard Nixon in his final days,” Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told reporters, referring to the disgraced former US leader who was forced to resign in 1974.
Bush did make an apparently conciliatory step by saying that Democratic demands that the Iraqi government meet certain political and security benchmarks made sense. But he stopped short of endorsing his rivals’ call for robust penalties should the fragile Baghdad administration fall short.
Pelosi countered: ”Benchmarks without consequences and enforcement are meaningless.”
Bush’s growing vulnerability was, meanwhile, underscored by news of a White House visit by 11 concerned Republican House members on Tuesday, which followed warnings by top Republicans that a ”plan B” might be needed if there is no clear success by September for the current US surge in Iraq.
”I’ve been to a lot of meetings with the president about the war. This was one of the toughest, frankest, no-holds-barred meetings,” said Republican lawmaker Ray LaHood, who was at Tuesday’s meeting.
September is emerging as a possible make-or-break point for US Iraq strategy, as General David Petraeus, US commander in the country, is expected to outline results of the surge. ”If the report is not good, is going to be very, very difficult,” LaHood said.
Bush said he reminded his guests ”we ought to give David Petraeus a chance … why don’t wait and see what happens? … let’s stop playing politics.”
The talks were also attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and top political adviser Karl Rove.
Democrats are striving to satisfy their restive anti-war support base and further their drive to bring troops home from Iraq, yet they also must find a funding Bill that the president will sign. — Sapa-AFP