The Militant - May 14, 2007 -- Bush vetoes Congress's bill on spending

Vol. 71/No. 19 May 14, 2007

Bush vetoes Congress's bill on spending
'Antiwar' pretense by Democrats wilts
(front page)

BY SAM MANUEL
WASHINGTON, May 1—With much pomp and fanfare, Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives sent the White House a bill today allocating $100 billion for Washington’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same day, U.S. president George Bush vetoed the bill, which the Democrats have portrayed as “antiwar” because it includes a “nonbinding” timetable for redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq by March 2008. At the same time, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have begun negotiating another war appropriations bill that would be acceptable to the White House.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has refused to receive Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki on the eve of a summit of states in the region. Washington seeks to pressure the governments of Iran and Syria at that meeting to do more to prevent armed groups from using their borders to enter Iraq to attack U.S. and Iraqi government security forces.

Rep. John Murtha, a leading Democrat, has hinted at a war appropriations bill that would impose penalties on the Iraqi government if it failed to meet a range of “benchmarks,” but would drop any timetable for troop redeployment. At the same time, senior Democrats say there is little point now in pressing a confrontation with Bush on Iraq, reported the Associated Press.

Speaking on the CBS TV show “Face the Nation” on April 29, U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Bush would oppose any benchmarks that punish Baghdad.

Rice is scheduled to attend the regional meeting in Egypt, where she may also hold talks with Iranian foreign minister Monouchehr Mottaki. “But what do we need to do?” Rice said, referring to Iran and Syria. “It’s quite obvious. Stop the flow of arms to foreign fighters. Stop the flow of foreign fighters across borders.”

The official reason for the snub of Maliki by Abdullah is the king’s schedule. But the Sunni monarchy has increasingly expressed disappointment in Baghdad’s lack of progress in making concessions to wealthy Sunnis in Iraq. Riyadh is also wary of a Shiite-led government in Iraq influenced by Tehran. At an Arab League summit in March Abdullah called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an “illegitimate occupation.”

Meanwhile, U.S. troops and members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia exchanged heavy gunfire in Kadhimiya, a majority Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, according to the Iraqi interior ministry. A Sadr spokesman said the fighting began after U.S. soldiers surrounded the group’s offices in the area.

The U.S. military also said it captured 72 suspected al-Qaeda members in the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin, which are largely inhabited by Sunnis.

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