Democrats in the US House of Representatives defied President George W Bush on Thursday and passed an Iraq war funds bill providing only enough money to continue combat for two or three months, without a guarantee of future funding.
By a vote of 221-205, the House approved the Democratic-backed bill giving Bush $42.8 billion in emergency military funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Progress report
But in a Democratic drive to bring the four-year-old Iraq war to an end, the bill would withhold an additional $52.8 billion until late July, after Bush submits progress reports.
Lawmakers then would decide whether to use this second batch of money to continue combat, or bring US troops home.
Bush wants the nearly $100 billion up front and without conditions. “I’ll veto the bill if it’s this haphazard, piecemeal funding,” Bush said earlier in the day.
Pullout bill defeated
Staunch anti-war Democrats on Thursday pushed for a complete withdrawal of combat troops by early 2008. While they lost on a 255-171 vote, backers said the vote demonstrated a sizable portion of the House wants to end the unpopular war.
The war-funding debate now moves to the Senate, which will try to amend the House bill enough to avert a second Bush veto. On May 1, Bush rejected a Democratic-backed bill that would have started US troop withdrawals from Iraq by October 1, with a non-binding goal of removing all combat soldiers by March 31.
Senators appear more willing to give Bush the $100 billion at once. Still unknown is how far the Senate might go in setting binding “benchmarks” to measure progress in Iraq.
Bush said he’ll back benchmarks but he and congressional Republicans do not want to spell out actions the US would take if Iraqi progress in securing the country falls short.
Arguing for the House’s latest war-funding plan, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said, “The president of the United States himself has stated that our commitment in Iraq is not open ended. That’s what this legislation says.”