The truth about the Iraq bill and the Bush veto

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#49889

The truth about the Iraq bill and the Bush veto
Posted by Bill Scher on March 29, 2007 at 7:21 AM.

President Bush, desperately trying to tamp down the rising tide of public pressure against the war, is seeking to misframe the Iraq bill he will soon veto.

Realizing he can no longer win the argument about the war itself, he is maligning the bill's backers as playing politics and risking the safety of our troops. In a speech on Wednesday, Bush said:

Funding for our forces in Iraq will begin to run out in mid-April. Members of Congress need to stop making political statements start providing vital funds for our troops … If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.

This makes the eventual bill sound like it will cut off funds for troops already in the field, which it simply does not.

It would fund the troops while they are in Iraq, but calls for their redeployment by next year -- which only departs from public opinion in that the public wants troops home sooner.

There is no debate between Congress and the White House about funding those already in the field.

The debate is over our final goals in Iraq: do we want to permanently occupy Iraq, or do we want a free and sovereign Iraq?

Permanent occupation is a strategy for failure.

more...