| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"Moshe The Kosher Sewer Rat" |
| Date: |
14 Nov 2007 11:07:52 PM |
| Object: |
House passes Iraq bill demanding troops out by December '08 |
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/14/iraq.war.funding/
House passes Iraq bill demanding troops out by December '08
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Democratic-controlled U.S. House Wednesday
approved a war-funding bill with a timeline for troop withdrawal from
Iraq and substantially less funds to conduct the war than President
Bush has requested.
Sen. Harry Reid says restrictions must be part of the bill or "the
president won't get his $50 billion."
The 218-203 vote was largely along party lines.
Fifteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill while
four Republicans voted in favor of it. The vote was far short of the
two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, which Bush
has threatened.
The bill states that the primary purpose of the money "should be to
transition the mission of United States Armed Forces in Iraq and
undertake their redeployment."
It demands that Bush begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 30 days
of passage, with a goal of having American combat troops out of Iraq
by December 15, 2008.
The $50 billion "bridge fund" is about a quarter of the nearly $200
billion the Bush administration has requested to pay for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008. Most of the money is slated for Iraq,
where the Pentagon estimates the cost of its operations at about $10
billion a month.
"The fact is, we can no longer militarily sustain the deployment in
Iraq," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California. "Staying there
in the manner we are there is no longer an option."
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Pelosi praised the performance of American troops, but said Iraqi
leaders have failed to take the steps needed to reach a political
settlement of the four-year-old war.
The White House said in a statement the legislation "would only
partially fund our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but fully embolden
our enemies ... These votes, like the dozens of previous failed votes,
put the interests of radical interest groups ahead of the needs of our
military and their mission."
"Congress has had ample time to pass legislation to fund our troops,"
the White House statement said. "The original supplemental request was
made in February and augmented in October. But because congressional
Democrats insist in going through another round of political votes and
vetoes, Pentagon planners will be forced to focus on accounting
maneuvers instead of military maneuvers."
Bush vetoed a similar measure in May. But the Democratic leaders of
the House and Senate say if the president vetoes this bill, the
administration will have to divert money from elsewhere in the
Pentagon's $470 billion budget to keep the war going.
Democrats say the 2006 elections that brought them to power in the
House and Senate were a mandate to end the war. But White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino said Democrats are wasting time "for political
posturing and to appease radical groups."
"The Democrats believe that these votes will somehow punish the
president, but it actually punishes the troops," Perino said. "This
punishes our military planners, our procurement officers and many
others who are working on this war effort. If the president is
presented with this version of the bill, he will veto it."
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the military already has had to
shift money in order to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The Army is in a particularly precarious situation," he said. "Absent
extraordinary measures, it would run out of money by mid-February. So
quick congressional action is needed, as quickly as possible."
Despite reports of progress from American commanders in Baghdad and a
sharp decline in U.S. and Iraqi deaths since the summer, Iraq remains
widely unpopular at home.
A CNN-Opinion Research poll conducted in early November found 68
percent of Americans polled oppose the war, and 62 percent consider
the conflict a stalemate.
"This bill is not perfect," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat from
California. "It is the boldest step yet, however, and we must support
it."
But Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt, the GOP whip, compared the new Democratic
effort to the film "Groundhog Day" in which the main character keeps
living the same day over and over.
"The Democrats appear to never get tired of foregone conclusions --
never get tired of doing the same thing over and over again, with the
same result," said Blunt.
The legislation also would require the Pentagon to give troops the
same amount of time at home as they were deployed into combat, and
bans government agents from using "waterboarding" -- a technique the
United States once prosecuted as a war crime -- against suspected
terrorists.
Bush already has announced plans to withdraw most of the 30,000
additional troops he dispatched in January in an effort to secure
Baghdad and its surrounding provinces, leaving about 140,000 American
troops in Iraq.
Pentagon and U.S. military sources say the reductions would already
have been necessary in order to make sure soldiers in a stretched Army
get their promised time off back home.
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HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
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