WASHINGTON, 3 May 2007 — The US House of Representatives failed yesterday to overturn President George W. Bush’s veto of a war-funding bill that would have set a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
The 222-203 vote, far short of the two-thirds majority needed for a veto override, occurred just ahead of a White House meeting that Bush called to begin compromise talks with congressional leaders of both parties on new legislation to finance the war, now in its fifth year.
“The president has turned a tin ear to the wishes of the American people,” the leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said during the hour-long debate before the vote. “The president wants a blank check. The Congress will not give it to him.”
But Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican, urged his colleagues to sustain the veto, saying politicians should not make military decisions. “Now is not the time for the United States to back down in its war on terror,” Lewis said.
Negotiations for a new spending bill could prove difficult. Both parties agree it should include benchmarks for progress in Iraq, but many Democrats insist they be tied to timelines for US troop withdrawals if they are unmet. Bush and his Republican congressional allies say such links are unacceptable.
Hours before the House vote sustained the veto, which Bush had issued Tuesday, the president showed little appetite for compromise.
“I am confident that with goodwill on both sides that we can move beyond political statements and agree on a bill that gives our troops the funds and flexibility to do the job that we asked them to do,” he said in a speech in Washington.
Of the original bill pushed through Congress by Democrats, Bush said: “It didn’t make any sense to impose the will of politicians over the recommendations of our military commanders in the field.”
Pelosi had told reporters yesterday: “Benchmarks are important, but they have to have teeth in order to be effective.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said before the vote that he hopes to have a new bill passed in the House in two weeks, with a final measure sent to the president before the end of the month. “We’re not going to leave our troops in harms way . . . without the resources they need,” said Hoyer.
Hoyer would not speculate on exactly what the bill might look like, but said he anticipates a minimum-wage increase will be part of it. He said the bill should fund combat through Sept. 30 as Bush has requested, casting doubt that Democratic leaders will adopt a proposal by Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat, to fund the war two or three months at a time.
The White House and Democrats on Wednesday began searching for a compromise on funding the Iraq war after Bush refused to accept a troop pullout timetable and rejected demands for a shift in course.
Earlier, Bush’s veto of a $124 billion funding bill on Tuesday that would have required a troop pullout to start this year prompted angry reactions from Democratic congressional leaders, who vowed to keep fighting for constraints on what they called Bush’s open-ended commitment in Iraq.
In a written veto message to Capitol Hill and a separate speech, Bush said he killed the legislation because it would allow politicians to “micromanage the commanders in the field.” He also said the legislation was considered unconstitutional because “it purports to direct the conduct of the operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency by the Constitution, including as commander in chief of the armed forces.” Bush said it was time to agree on legislation that would give US troops the money and flexibility to do their job.
“Even if you think it was a mistake to go into Iraq, it would be a far greater mistake to pull out now,” Bush told the Association of General Contractors of America. “There is no easy road out. The easy road would be the wrong road.”
Anticipating they would not be able to override the veto, congressional leaders are negotiating over new approaches for getting the war funds into the pipeline with conditions that Bush would accept. Among ideas circulating on Capitol Hill were including “benchmarks” for measuring the Iraqi government’s progress in stabilizing the country, where violence has been particularly gruesome recently.
It is unclear whether that progress would be tied to aid to Iraq or some sort of language on US troop levels.
“I think at this stage we’re going to wait and see what happens with the White House today,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on the Senate floor.
“The ball is in the president’s court. He has to come forward with something that is satisfactory to the Democrats and a significant number of Republicans. There has to be some change of direction in that war,” Reid said.
