US president to exercise veto power
US president to exercise veto power
By Edward Luce in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 30 2007 22:31 | Last updated: April 30 2007 22:31
President George W. Bush will almost certainly veto on Tuesday a $124bn war-spending bill that the White House says would impose an “artificial deadline” on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The Democratic majority on Capitol Hill choreographed Tuesday’s expected veto to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the president’s “mission accomplished” speech in which he declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
But Mr Bush, who has only exercised his presidential veto once when he put a red line through a stem cell research bill last September, is likely to portray the Democrats as the party of defeat in the face of what he says is the central front of the global “war on terror”.
He will also point to the fact that the war-funding bill, which was passed by narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate last week, contains more than $20bn (€14.7bn, £10bn) of unrelated pork barrel spending, including subsidies for Midwest farmers and hurricane victims.
The new version will almost certainly link future funding of the Iraq government to a number of “performance benchmarks” – a formula that the White House on Monday also rejected. But Democrats say the next bill would probably delete troop withdrawal deadlines in favour of more nuanced conditions.
“The Democratic objective is to ensure that Mr Bush continues to own Iraq politically and whatever failures are to come,” said Steven Clemons at the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank. “At the same time the Democrats want to avoid being accused of starving the troops of money. It is a fine balancing act.”
Public opinion is strongly supportive of the Democratic move to pull US troops out of Iraq, with up to two-thirds of the US public saying they have lost confidence in Mr Bush’s handling of the war. However, opinion is more mixed on what Congress should do following a presidential veto in what could develop into a full-blown constitutional battle.
In a CBS-New York Times poll last week, 57 per cent of Americans said Congress should have the final say over funding, against 36 per cent for Mr Bush. But only 36 per cent believed Congress should cut funding for US troops after Mr Bush had wielded his veto.
Democratic strategists believe their Republican counterparts, who have so far voted with Mr Bush, are likely to start peeling away. Many Republican senators are nervous about the 2008 congressional elections in which 21 of the 33 Senate seats that will be up for grabs will be Republican. The Democrats, who control the Senate by a narrow 51-49 margin, would need 67 votes to override a presidential veto.
General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, last week said it would be clear by September whether the continuing “surge” of 30,000 extra US troops would have achieved its desired effect.
■ A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 32 people when he blew himself up among mourners at a Shi’ite funeral north of Baghdad on Monday, Reuters reports.
The attack took place inside a crowded mourning tent in the town of Khalis in volatile Diyala province. More than 60 people had been wounded, police said.
Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
By Edward Luce in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 30 2007 22:31 | Last updated: April 30 2007 22:31
President George W. Bush will almost certainly veto on Tuesday a $124bn war-spending bill that the White House says would impose an “artificial deadline” on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The Democratic majority on Capitol Hill choreographed Tuesday’s expected veto to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the president’s “mission accomplished” speech in which he declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
But Mr Bush, who has only exercised his presidential veto once when he put a red line through a stem cell research bill last September, is likely to portray the Democrats as the party of defeat in the face of what he says is the central front of the global “war on terror”.
He will also point to the fact that the war-funding bill, which was passed by narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate last week, contains more than $20bn (€14.7bn, £10bn) of unrelated pork barrel spending, including subsidies for Midwest farmers and hurricane victims.
The new version will almost certainly link future funding of the Iraq government to a number of “performance benchmarks” – a formula that the White House on Monday also rejected. But Democrats say the next bill would probably delete troop withdrawal deadlines in favour of more nuanced conditions.
“The Democratic objective is to ensure that Mr Bush continues to own Iraq politically and whatever failures are to come,” said Steven Clemons at the New America Foundation, a centrist think-tank. “At the same time the Democrats want to avoid being accused of starving the troops of money. It is a fine balancing act.”
Public opinion is strongly supportive of the Democratic move to pull US troops out of Iraq, with up to two-thirds of the US public saying they have lost confidence in Mr Bush’s handling of the war. However, opinion is more mixed on what Congress should do following a presidential veto in what could develop into a full-blown constitutional battle.
In a CBS-New York Times poll last week, 57 per cent of Americans said Congress should have the final say over funding, against 36 per cent for Mr Bush. But only 36 per cent believed Congress should cut funding for US troops after Mr Bush had wielded his veto.
Democratic strategists believe their Republican counterparts, who have so far voted with Mr Bush, are likely to start peeling away. Many Republican senators are nervous about the 2008 congressional elections in which 21 of the 33 Senate seats that will be up for grabs will be Republican. The Democrats, who control the Senate by a narrow 51-49 margin, would need 67 votes to override a presidential veto.
General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, last week said it would be clear by September whether the continuing “surge” of 30,000 extra US troops would have achieved its desired effect.
■ A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 32 people when he blew himself up among mourners at a Shi’ite funeral north of Baghdad on Monday, Reuters reports.
The attack took place inside a crowded mourning tent in the town of Khalis in volatile Diyala province. More than 60 people had been wounded, police said.
Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:16 AM
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