WASHINGTON, March 29 — Issuing a stinging challenge to President Bush, the Senate approved a spending measure today that provides more than $96 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but calls for troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 120 days and sets a goal of removing most armed forces within a year.
Democrats, preparing for a bruising veto fight, immediately sought to paint the president as obstinate in the face of broad public sentiment against the Iraq war and said he would be the one abandoning American forces should he reject a final bill that lawmakers expect to produce in a few weeks.
"If the president vetoes this bill, it is an asterisk in history," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, following the 51-to-47 vote. "He sets the record for undermining the troops more than any president we have ever had."
But Mr. Bush was not wavering as he stood on the North Portico of the White House, flanked by Republican House leaders, and delivered his veto threat one more time.
"We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we've got a troop in harm's way, we expect that troop to be fully funded," he said. "And we've got commanders making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders; and that we expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people's money."
Two Republicans, Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, joined 49 Democrats in backing the measure, which totaled $123 billion when additional money for Gulf Coast hurricane relief, agricultural assistance and other domestic projects was added in.
Mr. Reid promised that negotiators would quickly begin to reconcile the new Senate measure with a version narrowly passed by the House last week. A key difference is that the Senate bill sets a nonbinding goal for withdrawing troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008, while the House version demands that they be out by September 2008.
The Democrats are aiming to have a bill ready to be approved and sent to the president soon after the House returns from its spring break on April 16.
There is really not much here that I can analyze, that I haven't already analyzed and talked about in my previous posts on Iraq. The Iraq war is a complete disaster--in fact is has been a disaster from the beginning with the occupation and reconstruction failure by the U.S. Iraq is now in a state of ethnic civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis. Both the 2006 midterm, and now the 2008 presidential elections are about the U.S. war in Iraq. The American people want out of Iraq. The Democrats in Congress have been trying to find a way to get the U.S. out of Iraq. President Bush wants to continue the war until after the 2008 elections so that Bush can salvage his presidential legacy, and dump the entire Iraq mess on his successor. The Republicans are meekly following the Bush White House down the cliff. It is High Noon.
I thought it would be fun to include this little YouTube video. It is Bonnie Tyler's song Holding Out for a Hero, played to Looney Tune's classic cartoon Drip-Along Daffy:
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