Bush: Democrats ‘Irresponsible’ on War Funding Bill
EmailABC News’ Karen Travers Reports: President Bush once again called on Congress to drop the timetables, strings and pork barrel projects and pass a funding bill for the military that he can sign into law.
He stressed the urgency of the pending supplemental legislation and blamed the majority party in Congress for the delay.
"We are at war. It is irresponsible for the Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds they need to succeed," Bush said.
President Bush said he has invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House next week to discuss progress on the spending bill and the way forward on a "clean bill" that funds the troops "without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground."
The President said that the bills passed by the House and Senate "substitute the judgment of politicians in Washington for the judgment of [the] commanders on the ground" in Iraq.
The President repeated his stance that Congress’ failure to fund the troops means that "some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated."
"This is unacceptable," Bush said today in a speech to the American Legion in Fairfax, Virginia. "It’s unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to our veterans, it’s unacceptable to our military families, and it’s unacceptable to many in this country."
Bush said in the coming days, military leaders will tell Congress that they will be forced to transfer $1.6-billion from other military accounts to cover the shortfall in funding, taking money from "personnel accounts" to continue Army operations in Iraq and elsewhere.
He said this comes on top of another $1.7-billion in transfers that military leaders told Congress about last month.
"These actions are only the beginning. And the longer Congress delays, the worse the impact on the men and women of the armed forces will be."
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Wow, look who’s calling who irresponsible. Bush should hide his head in shame for the irresponsible act of taking us into an unnecessary war in Iraq. The war we should have stayed in and could have won is brewing up again in Afghanistan. He had no business taking us into Iraq. Had we stayed in Afghanistan it would be all over now. Now he doesn’t know how to get us out of Iraq so he will blame anyone he can. Shame on you Mr. Bush. Shame. Grow up and take responsibility like a man for your bad actions.Admit you were wrong for once in your term and let our kids come home. Or is that asking too much of a coward?
Ron
Posted by: Ron | April 10, 2007, 2:10 pm 2:10 pm
Fight the Long War, Until the Long War is Won. Anywhere…
Posted by: Marine Corps | April 10, 2007, 5:17 pm 5:17 pm
Bush is right. A bill without the “pork” and without withdrawl timetables is the only responsible thing Congress should presentfor passage. Bush may have beeen wrong on a lot of our Iraq policy, but now is not the time for America to run and hide. We can and should win now or we will fight this war many times over in the future.
Posted by: arlon | April 10, 2007, 9:10 pm 9:10 pm
Bush would prefer a rubber stamp congress…sad (for him), those days are long gone. Thank God for representative democracy…I never voted for the man and I am happy that I now have a branch of government there to represent my views…remove ourself from Iraq and lets focus on other important strategic issues. Energy independance would be a good place to start…then we wouldn’t be so concerned about the middle east.
Posted by: Dirik Lolkus | April 11, 2007, 9:30 am 9:30 am
War should be made illegal!
Posted by: Mel Falconbridge | April 11, 2007, 12:29 pm 12:29 pm
Can congress just give Bush funding for 6 months, then after 6 months he has to come back again to ask for more? 50 billion now, 50 billion later?
By enough time will have passed to determine the benefit from the surge.
Posted by: ben | April 11, 2007, 1:36 pm 1:36 pm