President Bush vetoes Iraq spending bill

President Bush yesterday made good on his threat to veto the Democratic plan for withdrawal from Iraq, forcing a sharply divided Congress to start over in its effort to pay for the war.

 “Some members of Congress wanted to send a political message. They sent their message,” Bush said in a seven-minute televised statement moments after vetoing the bill. “Now is the time to put politics behind us and give the troops the funding they need.”

{mosads}Bush rejected the timeline for withdrawal in the bill, said it would constrain military commanders and complained that it contained too much unrelated spending.

He noted that he will meet with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders today to start a dialogue on a new spending bill.

He sent the plan back to a Congress whose leaders say they’re willing to work with Bush, but show little signs of backing down.

 “We can’t lie down and play dead,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). “It would be a disservice to our constituents.”

Options include a two-month bill that would give Bush and the Pentagon enough money to pay for Bush’s “surge” plan.
Another idea is to draft a bill to cover war costs for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Those options would be intended to keep Bush on a short financial leash in Iraq, while attracting more support from conservative Democrats and Republicans by not setting a deadline for withdrawal.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), a conservative Democrat who has voted against his party’s Iraq bill twice. “Four to six month increments would keep the debate going on Iraq. A lot of Americans, if they don’t have a loved one serving, are not engaged in Iraq right now.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said some Republicans might be willing to support benchmarks on progress in Iraq that are backed up by penalties.

“There are some kinds of benchmarks that might well achieve bipartisan support and might actually even conceivably be helpful to the effort in Iraq,” McConnell said. “And that’s what we’re going to be looking for.”

But in a statement, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared to reject any agreement on benchmarks:
“House Republicans will oppose any bill that includes provisions that undermine our troops and their mission, whether it’s benchmarks for failure, arbitrary readiness standards, or a timetable for American surrender.”

Another option would be splitting off Katrina and other emergency funding from the Iraq spending portion of the bill.

“When I say everything’s on the table, I mean it,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a member of House leadership.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed the bill in a rare signing event in the Speaker’s Ceremonial Office that resembled a presidential signing ceremony. Usually, the “enrollment” process takes place unnoticed. But Pelosi sat with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at a varnished table and set her signature on a red-bordered formal copy of the bill on parchment, enclosed in a box-sized portfolio.

Pelosi then closed the portfolio and handed it to House Clerk Lorraine Miller. A member of Miller’s staff then drove to the White House with the portfolio.

“This legislation honors the will of the American people to end the Iraq war,” Pelosi said after signing it.

Reid does not have a formal role in the enrollment process. Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd (D-Va.) had signed the bill before the event. He joined Pelosi in making one last pitch for Bush to sign the bill rather than veto it.

Reid said, “A veto means denying troops the resources and strategy they need.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans applauded the presidential veto and urged their Democratic colleagues to strip the timetable and so-called “pork” out of the bill.

“We are hoping today that in one stroke the president will veto this bill that was dead on conception, not on arrival,” said  Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.).

Bush’s veto and his televised evening statement upstaged the Democrats’ signing ceremony. Both came on the fourth anniversary of Bush’s speech on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”

The president’s critics have seized on the speech as a symbol of Bush’s misjudgments. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the speech has been “widely misconstrued,” and she called Democrat’s timing “a trumped-up political stunt that is the height of cynicism.”

Pelosi rejected the idea that politics was behind the timing. She said it was delayed by attending the Monday funeral of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.).

“Today’s the first day I can sign the bill,” Pelosi told reporters.

Pelosi also said Bush should send his own suggestions for a new supplemental bill.

“I think that would be the normal course of events,” she said.

Pelosi, Reid and Republican leaders are to meet with Bush this afternoon to discuss Iraq and war funding.

The $124 billion bill would have given Bush all the money he requested for the war and the surge strategy, and added money for military healthcare and the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

But it still would have required troop withdrawals to begin this year, and set a “goal” of withdrawing most troops by April 1, 2008.

 Bush had also derided some of the non-military spending as needless pork. But Congress had removed the most-mocked items, like money for spinach farmers and peanut storage.

Pelosi did not expound on a post-veto game plan in yesterday’s Democratic Caucus meeting.

The caucus meeting ended with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), one of the party’s most liberal members, and Rep. Joe Crowley  (D-N.Y.), a self-avowed centrist, sparring over a provision in the veto-bound bill dealing with the Iraqi oil industry and whether the  U.S. is paving the way for its privatization.

Jackie Kucinich contributed to this report.