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The House of Representatives said OK Thursday to a $471 billion Pentagon budget that covers spending for everything in the Defense budget except the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new budget reflects a 9 percent, $40 billion increase over last fiscal year.
The Pentagon bill only funds core department operations, omitting Bush’s $196 billion request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, except for an almost $12 billion infusion for new troop vehicles that are resistant to roadside bombs. …
The House-Senate Pentagon measure is Bush’s top priority in the budget endgame consuming so much time and energy on Capitol Hill. It would be the first of 12 appropriations bills for the budget year that began Oct. 1 to be signed into law.
Bush has in turn promised to veto Democratic-driven increases for domestic programs, and nowhere are those Democratic priorities more evident than on the labor, health, human services and education funding bill. It’s the second largest of the 12 annual appropriations bills funding agency budgets, and it is by far the largest bill funding domestic programs.
Meanwhile, a House vote on a $50 billion White House request for combat operations in Iraq could take place as early as Friday. It represents about a fourth of the $196 billion Mister Bush has requested and would finance four months of combat:
The proposal, similar to one Bush vetoed earlier this year, would identify a goal of ending combat entirely by December 2008. It would require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat, as well as effectively ban harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding.
In a private caucus meeting, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi told rank-and-file Democrats that the bill was their best shot at challenging Bush on the war. And if Bush rejected it, she said, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year.
“This is not a blank check for the president,” she said later at a Capitol Hill news conference. “This is providing funding for the troops limited to a particular purpose, for a short time frame.” …
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush would veto any bill that sets an “artificial timeline” for troop withdrawals. …Several anti-war liberals said Thursday they were willing to get behind the measure, so long as Democrats don’t send Bush the money anyway if the bill is vetoed.
“What I don’t want to do is get on this merry-go-round where we try to end this war and negotiate it down to a blank check,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “It’s time to play hardball.”
And they call us an echo chamber. McGovern’s a good guy, but we’ve heard all this before, before, before.
Bush, in his veto dance:
I’ve invited leaders of both parties to come to the White House tomorrow and to discuss how we can get these vital funds to our troops. I’m confident that with good will on both sides, we can agree on a bill that gets our troops the money and flexibility they need as soon as possible.
Condi Rice, back in February, on what kind of “good will” the Congress can expect from Bush:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war today and suggested President George W. Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation.
My dear Article I friends, there’s no point in seeking “good will” from a president who says he’ll simply defy your legislation.
But you don’t have to just take Condi’s word for it. Charlie Savage just won the Pulitzer Prize for telling you exactly how often the president has already defied your legislation.
If he’s comfortable simply ignoring whatever Congress’ final product is — as he has been with over 1,000 bills to date, passed under both Republican and Democratic majorities — what could his “good will” possibly be worth?
The Sunday Washington Post leads off with today’s “big story” — there are out-of-control “contractors” shooting people indiscriminately in Iraq.
On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad’s Green Zone in an armored SUV. The team leader, Jacob C. Washbourne, rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in a good mood. His vacation started the next day.
“I want to kill somebody today,” Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards.
Yes, we know.
Now jump with me to something “completely different.”
However you felt about the confrontation between anti-occupation activists and House Appropriations Chairman David Obey made famous on YouTube, you were probably struck by Obey’s confident assertion that the bill “makes the war illegal.”
Just a gentle reminder for Congress: Passing a bill, even one that gets signed, isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be — especially under an “administration” that throws signing statements like confetti, and is perpetually feeding its homework to the dog.
From the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News, we learn that a provision of the Defense Authorization bill passed last year that purported to finally bring mercenary “defense contractors” under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) hasn’t quite panned out:
Contractors accompanying U.S. military forces in Iraq or elsewhere who commit crimes may be beyond the reach of law enforcement, a recent Army publication warns(pdf), because the Defense Department has not yet updated its regulations to conform to a Congressional mandate, resulting in a “gap” in legal jurisdiction.
“In November 2006, Congress expanded UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] authority over contractor personnel authorized to accompany the force. However, as of February 2007, DOD has provided no implementation guidance for this change in law.”
See “Contractors Accompanying the Force - Training Support Package” (pdf), 12 March 2007 (at page 31).
As of mid-March, there was still no such implementation guidance.
The change in the law, reported triumphantly by MotherJones.com, among others, has “yet to be implemented.” A quick perusal of the president’s signing statement accompanying the bill evidences no overt reservations regarding the provision, contained in Sec. 552.
What’s holding it up? Couldn’t tell you for sure. But what does it mean? It means that once again, the Congress has been told to take a long walk off a short pier with regard to exercising its constitutional powers over military governance.
What sort of “implementation guidance” do we think they’ll provide for Congressionally mandated redeployment contained in the “Iraq Accountability Act,” even if it passes and is signed by the president? And when are we going to see some indication that Congress fully understands that it’s being flipped the bird?
On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales comes to Capitol Hill to peddle his wares. That’d be a pretty good time to wake up to the reality that this “administration” considers Congress nothing but an inconvenience. And an even better time to get tough and do something about it.
Yesterday George Bush said:
The clock is ticking for our troops in the field. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.
Well, they’ve passed a bill. So, when Bush vetos it, the American people will know who to hold responsible. George Bush.
Next up, the veto:
The Democratic-controlled Senate ignored a veto threat and voted Thursday for a bill requiring President Bush to start withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within four months, dealing a sharp rebuke to a wartime commander in chief.
In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008.
Update by kos: Here’s the roll call vote.
No Democrats voted against it, not even Pryor. Two Republicans voted for it — Hagel and Smith. Johnson and Enzi weren’t present for the vote. Johnson is still rehabbing, while Enzi is back home in Wyoming with his critically ill mother.
