U.S. President Bush faces pressure on Iraq as UK's Blair leaves
U.S. House Democrats pass war funds bill Bush promised to veto; Blair says he went it to Iraq believing it to be the right thing to do.
By ReutersUnited States President George W. Bush faced mounting pressure on Thursday from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats to show progress in Iraq, as Congress again defied him by passing a limited war funds bill.
On the day that Bush's closest international ally on the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced he would step down next month, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the war funds bill he had already promised to veto.
The bill provides only enough money to continue combat for the next two or three months and lacks any guarantee of future funding.
"I'll veto the bill if it's this haphazard, piecemeal funding," Bush warned earlier in the day, saying Congress should give military commanders more time and flexibility.
Bush vetoed a $124 billion war funding bill last week because it set a deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops.
The latest Democratic-backed measure, passed by a vote of 221-205, would give Bush $42.8 billion in emergency military funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and related activities.
An additional $52.8 billion would have to be approved by Congress in late July, after Bush submits progress reports on the war. Lawmakers would then decide whether to use that second batch of money to continue combat or to bring most U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Bush wants the nearly $100 billion up front to fund the wars and without conditions for future votes on troop withdrawals.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin said he and fellow Democrats had made several key concessions to Bush, including dropping earlier provisions setting firm dates for leaving Iraq.
Earlier in the day, after a meeting with U.S. commanders for an update on the war, Bush hailed Blair as a "political figure who is capable of thinking over the horizon," after the British leader made the expected announcement he would step down in June.
Blair told Britons disillusioned by the war, which severely damaged both leaders' standing at home and abroad, that he had done what he believed was right.
Members of Bush's Republican Party also have begun to more publicly question the war, which has killed at least 3,377 U.S. soldiers and injured more than 24,000 since 2003.
"The American people are war-fatigued," Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood told CNN on Thursday. "The American people want to know that there's a way out. The American people want to know that we're having success."
LaHood was among 11 moderate Republicans who met privately with Bush at the White House on Tuesday. Most, if not all, could face stiff Democratic challenges in 2008 elections.
They told Bush that by September the troop buildup he ordered for Iraq three months ago must show progress. But only two Republicans on Thursday voted for the funding bill passed by the House.
Bush is sending 30,000 additional troops to Iraq, mainly for the offensive in Baghdad, which is regarded as a last-ditch effort to pull Iraq back from the brink of civil war.
In a sign of growing U.S. impatience at Iraq's slowness in passing laws on oil distribution and other key measures, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit there this week and told U.S. soldiers on Thursday that militants had made Iraq the front line in the war on terrorism.
"We are here, above all, because the terrorists who have declared war on America and other free nations have made Iraq the central front in that war," Cheney told the troops at a base near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
The office of Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, said the senior Sunni leader had been "comforted" by recent meetings with political leaders aimed at addressing Sunni Arab concerns.
Hashemi and other senior figures from Iraq's largest Sunni Arab bloc had warned they might quit the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki if their grievances were ignored.
On Wednesday, Cheney held talks with Hashemi, Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.
Sunnis want to increase their representation in Iraq's security forces and soften laws that prohibit thousands of members of Saddam's former Sunni-dominated Baath Party from playing a role in public life.
Democratic lawmakers argue that withholding some funds could put pressure on Iraqis to step up attempts to stabilize their country.
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"Bush wants the nearly $100 billion up front to fund the wars and without conditions for future votes on troop withdrawals." The Iraq War is clearly lost, and Bush is simply trying to save his stupid, wretched face by refusing to acknowledge this. Forgetting the vast amount of money the American taxpayer has already wasted on this mad Bush foreign adventure, he now wants an additional $100,000,000,000 to squander. At an interest rate of 5%, this means the US taxpayer will have to stump up another $5,000,000,000 each year IN INTEREST ALONE, and FOREVER. I am sure future generations of Americans will bless Bush for this burden.
If US not failed in Iraq, most probably people would see the illegal invasion upon Iraq and the killing on tens thousand of Iraqi civilians in the process is JUST and LEGAL: WIN = LEGAL, LOST = ILLEGAL. That's the way the westerners usually think about anything. OSAMA knows that, AHMADINEJAD too.
The occupation of Iraq is illegal. It was a pre-emptive strike on a sovereign country that did not attack us. It was sold to the American people based on lies. One of these lies is that Iraq had ties to the 9/11 attack. The true evidence of September 11th seems to be completely ignored by the mainstream media in the United States. I have been researching 9/11 for over four years and there are serious unanswered questions from that day. I will propose 5. I hope you investigate these for yourself. 1) Never in the history of steel structures has a building collapsed from fire yet 3 did on 9/11; WTC tower 1, 2 & 7. All three buildings came down at free fall speed with no resistance; tower 7 was never hit by an airplane yet came down symmetrically in seven seconds? Additionally odd, tower 2 fell before tower 1 although tower 1 was hit first and tower 2 was hit with a glancing blow. The explosion/ collapse in tower 2 started above where the plane hit the tower? The explanation by NIST and Popular Mechanics says that the jet fuel weakened the steel and caused a pancake collapse, one floor falling on another. This does not account for the free fall speed of the collapse from both towers? Additionally, jet fuel burns at only about 1500 Degrees Fahrenheit in the open air and structural steel does not melt or even get significantly weakened until more than a thousand degrees hotter with a melting point of near 3300 degrees F. 2) There is no large plane wreckage in front of the Pentagon from the 757 that hit it. Taking from the official story, the 757 that hit the pentagon flew over a highway, parallel and 15 to 20 feet above the ground and impacted the pentagon between the 1st and 2nd floor. (official story) The airplane did not leave any markings or large debris (ex wings) on the front of the pentagon. the 757 supposedly was sucked into a 16ft by 24ft hole, before the ceiling collapsed a 1/2 hour later, and incinerated. how did this plane hit only 15 ft above the ground after descending so rapidly without ever hitting the ground and flown by an amateur pilot? The 3 slides the pentagon released to the public shows a small shaped device flying horizontally, very low to the ground and leaving a small smoke trail. Just recently Pilots for 9/11 Truth, an international organization of pilots and aviation professionals, petitioned the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) in regards to the flight data recovered from Flight 77. The data provided by the NTSB contradicts the flight path given by the 9/11 commission report. The flight data that the NTSB provided shows the 757 that hit the pentagon at 300 feet above the highway and could not have clipped the light poles and subsequently struck the pentagon between the first and second floor. How come the Pentagon has not released video from the cameras mounted on the roof? lastly, after traveling through three rings of the Pentagon, the plane or whatever it was left a small circular exit hole in the third ring. 3. All four hijacked planes flew for an average of 40 minutes, 1 hour 50 minutes total, without any fighter jet intercept over NY and Washington. As you are aware, NY and Washington are some of the most protected airspace in the world. 4. Where is the plane wreckage from the plane crash in Shanksville, PA? in pictures and video all you see is a small ditch with no fires, plane debris, seats, bodies, etc.? 5. How was the Patriot Act and the War on Terror so quickly developed after 9/11? Was this new program a reaction to 9/11 or something that was worked on before September 11th and just conveniently ready for a terrorist attack? 9/11 was an inside job, a false flag operation. Sadly, the sophistication of this operation points more towards state sponsored terrorism than a small group of bandits inside a cave.