The threatened veto of the supplemental to fund the Iraq War contains ALL the money Bush requested to support out troops through the end of the fiscal year. Now Bush is telling the American People that if Congress passes the supplemental with restrictions on the War, he will veto the bill and Congress will have failed to fund the troops. That is not correct Mr. President! If congress had not included the needed funding such a claim would be valid. However, if you veto the bill that contains the money needed for the support of our troops it will be the Commander-in-chief that prevented the funding from being available NOT Congress. In addition, the reason we even need a supplemental is because Bush did not include the funding for the war in his 2007 budget so it appeared the budget was $120 billion smaller. The excuse was that they could not estimate the amount needed. Then how did Bush estimate the amount to ask for in the supplemental? In addition, in the 2008 budget, Bush did include the funding for the Iraq war. HOW was he was able to estimate the amount he included in the 2008 budget?
Bush may not like the restrictions aimed at ending this war, however, that is the WILL of the Congress and the American people. Bush simply will not accept the fact that the majority of Americans want this war to end. Congress has acted in accordance with the wishes of the majority and it is time for GWB to accept that he is NOT a Dictator.
Yesterday, Bush got another shock when King Abdullah the ruler of Saudi Arabia condemned our invasion of Iraq. The King was speaking before the Arab Summit and said the invasion of Iraq was an, “illegitimate foreign occupation”. He lectured the U.S. on the invasion in a very strongly worded speech before the leaders of the Arab World. This from the leader of a country the U.S. needs to supply our oil and who has been a good friend to the Bush family. If GWB had any sense he would look around and see that he has no support for this war. It was a mistake as King Abdullah said it is time to end our occupation of Iraq.
If Bush vetoes the supplemental funding for the military, Congress needs to pass an identical bill and send it back to the White House. If the funding becomes a problem it will be because of the stubbornness of the President to acknowledge the time has come to turn the fight for Iraq over to the Iraqi people.