Dems Withhold Iraq Funding, Insist Bush Set Retreat Date
Still. Night of the Living Opportunists. “It’s just a political ploy to try to end the war by starving the troops,” Mr. Stevens said.
NYT:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — House and Senate negotiators approved a $459 billion military spending bill on Tuesday, but rejected a Republican bid to provide $70 billion more to continue fighting the war in Iraq without any restrictions.
Senior Democratic lawmakers said they would provide less money for the war, for a shorter time, with certain restrictions that are to be decided in the next few days.
Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, urged the House and Senate negotiators to provide the $70 billion for six months of combat in Iraq, money separate from the regular Defense Department budget.
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said: “This amendment would send to the president additional funding for his horrible, misguided war in Iraq without any Congressional direction that he change course. No strings attached. That would be a tragic mistake.”
“No more blank checks for war funding,” Mr. Byrd declared.
The new Democratic leaders of Congress have repeatedly been stymied in their efforts to bring troops back from Iraq or to force a change in President Bush’s war policies. But the Democrats made clear on Tuesday that they would try again to change course by using the power of the purse — what James Madison called “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.”
Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania and chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said: “The public wants this war over with. Many Democrats were elected because they said this war ought to end.”
Mr. Murtha said he and Mr. Byrd would recommend “goals or timelines” for curtailing American military operations in Iraq. “Our goal,” he said, “would be to get everybody out” by the end of next year.
Mr. Byrd said he had drafted legislative language that would send “a clear message to the president that we must transition the mission in Iraq to encourage Iraqis to take a much greater role in securing their future.”
The restrictions would be added to a bill providing money — a maximum of $50 billion — to continue the Iraq war to next spring, Mr. Murtha said. The president has requested nearly $200 billion for the full year, but Democrats said they were unwilling to provide the full amount in a lump sum, without conditions.
Short-term financing for the Iraq war is not included under the military spending bill that pays for weapons systems and the far-flung operations of the Defense Department in the budget year that began Oct. 1.
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Congress has approved some $412 billion for the Iraq war, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Most of the money has paid for military operations.
In May, Mr. Bush vetoed a war spending bill on the ground that it would “set an arbitrary date for beginning the withdrawal of American troops” from Iraq. Military commanders, he said, should not have to take “fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.” The White House could raise similar objections to the restraints now contemplated by Congressional Democrats.
Republicans said the Democrats were trying to establish a “slow bleed strategy” in Iraq.
“It’s just a political ploy to try to end the war by starving the troops,” Mr. Stevens said.
The bill includes a 3.5 percent pay increase for all military personnel. That is one-half of a percentage point more than Mr. Bush requested.
Congress has not completed work on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills. Attached to the Defense Department spending bill is a measure that would provide a short-term infusion of cash for other agencies, to allow them to continue spending at current levels through Dec. 14.
In late September, just days before the start of the current fiscal year, Congress passed a stopgap spending bill for the entire government, but most of its provisions expire Nov. 16.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, predicted that most of the unfinished appropriations bills would be packed together in “a bloated omnibus money bill.”
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desperate times call for desperate measures. when you are deperate to secure defeat dems fall back on funding since they can not make a legal nor a moral argument against a war they initially supported. Its nice to know that the dems have clearly delinineated what their new label should be: we wont call them progressives, we’ll call them ‘losers’.
I can’t imagine a man like murtha who achieved the rank of colonel in the marines, commanding much respect from his marines if they were to know the true nature of his vision for america. He joined the right party!
November 7th, 2007 at 2:14 amBastards.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:27 amIt’s stories like this that make people like me hate politicians, on both sides of the isle. I am sick of this kind of BS getting in the way of doing what is important. I hope a compromise can be found.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:05 amSame song, how many verses. How many fucking times can the dems try this crap, only to be kicked in the crotch. And they want to run the country. HOLY SHIT!!
November 7th, 2007 at 6:10 amHere we go again, these opportunists dont care about our troops or the good of this country. Just themselves having power
November 7th, 2007 at 6:25 amThe only right that the House has in regards to military operations is declaring war and deciding whether or not to pay for them. They can’t “slow bleed”. They can’t legislate troop levels, deployment/redeployment dates, or retreat. It’s a black and white issue: if you’re so sure the citizens support your surrender plans, cut off funding. But, they don’t do that. Why? Even though you’ll never catch the snakes admitting it, they know that they weren’t put in office for defeat, they know that the citizens don’t want to lose to 7th century throwbacks, they know that IF they ever did what they were suuposedly elected for, it would mean the end of their political careers and that they may even meet the same ends (theoretically) as Mousellini. The funny thing is, if they could just see past the end of their noses (and had any braincells left after the 8 am cocktails, speedballs and “funny” cigarettes) they would realize that if they threw their support behind our soldiers, their mission and their families; Iraq would be 90% pacified by this time next year with troops on the way home en masse, Iran would no longer be ruled by mullahs with nukes, Lebanon would actually be run by their own government instead of Hezbollah/Iran/Syria and Hamas would be nothing more than an anecdote in history.
Murtha/KKK Byrd - I as an American citizen and veteran of the US Army am sick and tired of your traiterous and unconstitutional activities. You have aided and abetted the enemies of our nation and it’s citizens for too long. Both of you standing along side all other Democrats in the House, Senate and Populace have the blood of our brave servicemembers on YOUR hands. If not for your traiterous activities, 90% of our forces could have come home from Iraq by now, victorious and with a prosperous and peaceful Iraq behind them. Instead, you have leaked state secrets, denied funding for essential military equipment, granted rights guaranteed for lawful soldiers to unlawful combatant thugs that are not even recognized by the Geneva Convention.
It is time. Time for us as citizens to fulfill the responsibilities placed before us by our grandfathers. Placed before us by those still on the beaches of Normandy, the island of Iwo Jima, the hills around Gettysburg, the snows of Valley Forge. 2008 is the year. The single, most important election in the history of the US. Here now, we stand at a crossroads of continueing as a great nation, or coming to the ends first seen by the Romans.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:42 amMurtha/KKK Byrd - I as an American citizen and veteran of the US Army am sick and tired of your traiterous and unconstitutional activities. You have aided and abetted the enemies of our nation and it’s citizens for too long. Both of you standing along side all other Democrats in the House, Senate and Populace have the blood of our brave servicemembers on YOUR hands. If not for your traiterous activities, 90% of our forces could have come home from Iraq by now, victorious and with a prosperous and peaceful Iraq behind them. Instead, you have leaked state secrets, denied funding for essential military equipment, granted rights guaranteed for lawful soldiers to unlawful combatant thugs that are not even recognized by the Geneva Convention.
Amen brother!!!
November 7th, 2007 at 9:44 amThis is what they did in Vietnam. Cut off funding. You think the MSM will report it?
November 7th, 2007 at 10:32 amLamplighter, took them 2 years to stab in the back 58,000 dead GIs, today they’re stabbing them in the back right to their face. Read this, it spells it out better than I. hnn.us/articles/31400.html
November 7th, 2007 at 7:04 pmI think that it is really odd to fund a government project from an emergency funding bill. They should be a line item in a regular appropriations bill.
” … the outgoing head of the military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization —
a task force that develops anti-bomb technology — has gone public with
complaints. Montgomery C. Meigs, a retired Army general, warned this week
that the funding shortage would force a halt to the group’s activities.”
“I will no longer be able to fund any new initiatives or new projects,”
Meigs said Monday in a rare briefing with reporters. “What I cannot fund
today will not go into the field next summer or fall.”
Wouldn’t cost of personnel be in the regular budget? It’s not like we can’t count them. Is anyone expecting a surprise jump in the number of civilians working for DoD?
Is anyone keeping an eye on this? What other stuff has been thown in?
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:36 amThe whole thing seems suspect, when the start throwing the hundreds of billions around. 165,000 X $100,000= 16.5 billion dollars and a good bunch of them are leaving. Add as much to pay contractors who “save” us money compared to the troops. We’ve got $33B. Where is the other 165 billion going?
Not having the troops in the regular budget implies that we are laying them off as they come home. Anybody believe that?