House Defies Bush On Iraq Funding

Passes Limited Funding Bill, Rejects 9-Month Exit Plan; Bush Signals Flexibility On Benchmarks

(CBS/AP) 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has met privately in recent days with White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the beginning of talks aimed at producing a compromise funding bill that Mr. Bush would sign.

In a speech in January, Mr. Bush listed several goals for the Iraqis, including legislation to share oil revenue among all Iraqis, spending $10 billion on job-creating reconstruction projects, holding provincial elections, overhauling de-Baathification laws and creating a fair process for considering amendments to the constitution.

But in contrast to many lawmakers, the administration has not yet publicly accepted proposals to make future reconstruction funds conditional on Baghdad's progress in achieving the goals.

Mr. Bush and the Democratic leaders were maneuvering in a complicated political environment.

Republican lawmakers have grown increasingly restive about a war that they believe cost them their congressional majorities in last fall's elections. In a private meeting with Mr. Bush and several key administration officials at the White House, 11 moderate GOP lawmakers bluntly told Mr. Bush that the status quo was unsustainable and could mean further election losses next year.

Sen. Olympia Snow, R-Maine, is pushing a benchmark bill with deadlines, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. The bill gives the Iraqi government four months to meet key benchmarks including taking control of its own military, disarming militias and instituting political reforms.

If those benchmarks aren't met, there would be huge changes for the 146,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. Most combat troops would be out within six months, Attkisson reports, and the mission would shift to training and support.

But Pelosi and Reid face obstacles of their own.

They are determined to make sure that essential funding for the war is not cut off. At the same time, they are laboring to keep faith with their own rank-and-file, with the war-weary voters who installed them in power, and with MoveOn.org and other groups whose overriding goal is to force the withdrawal of the U.S. combat troops.

MoveOn.org, in particular, has played a key behind-the-scenes role in the months since Congress convened under Democratic majorities. The group, which played a highly visible role in last year's election campaign, acquiesced in an early Democratic strategy of seeking approval for nonbinding measures to pressure Mr. Bush to change his plans.

In recent weeks, that has changed. Fearing that Democrats ultimately will surrender and give Mr. Bush the money he wants, the organization sent Reid and Pelosi a letter saying that if Democrats “appear to capitulate to Bush on Iraq, MoveOn will move to a position of opposition.”

[starleo146]

toldyouso I agree with everything you say and it just amazing to me how you hit it on the head every time and explain it so well thank you there are a lot of you like that I have read everything toldyouso and iceman wrote today great learning day thanks.

[abbe7]

"I would like to ask the chairman of the Armed Services Commitee, if we can, publically, have an analysis of where the "Money for the Troops" go? How much actually go to the troops and how much to the "War Machine" and Defence Contractors?
Posted by nikosk1 at 02:52 PM : May 12, 2007"

Extremely good point. My bet is ... most of it goes to Blackwater. But after the troops withdrawal, can you imagine Bush asking money for ... Blackwater ?

[abbe7]

Mony needed for the troops ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12oil.html?ex=1179633600&en=4881a2134cb37032&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

[abbe7]

"Anyone who refuses to discount even the possibility that 9/11 was a setup is showing insufficient diligence to be a citizen of a democracy.
Posted by jimibear at 10:20 AM : May 11, 2007

Refuses to discount??? I can't figure out where you're at one this? I DO discount even the remotest possibility. Please tell me you're not one of those Rosie O'Lardass "Bush brought down the twin towers" stooges!!!!!
Posted by Infidel_US at 10:49 AM : May 11, 2007"

Google "Operation Northwoods" and find out about the "remotest possibility".

[drummer94]

Yup that moron said that. And with that smarmy little frig-you smile of his.

[radiob-2009]

From his own lips

Bush told reporters Thursday that if pollsters had asked his opinion about Iraq last fall, "I'd have said I disapprove of what was going on in Iraq. They could have put me down as part of the disapproval process."

That was before his decision to send nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq, which "would more likely cause me to approve of what's going on in Iraq," he added.

And yet the violence and killing rages on, the only change is the location.

[mh4cbs1]

CBS FIRED General Batiste as a consultant for criticizing the Bush/Cheney War on Iraq.
For news that the corporate medial won't report:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051107R.shtml

JAIL BUSH JAIL CHENEY They LIED us into Iraq!

[kstrisha]

Oh look here it is...

"I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans. I'm a lifelong Republican, but it's past time for change," retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste told reporters.


"Our strategy in Iraq today is more of the same, a slow grind to nowhere which totally ignores the reality of Iraq and the lessons of history," Batiste said. "Our president ignores sound military advice and surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates."

[kstrisha]

Where are the quotes by General Batiste that were in this ORIGINAL ARTICAL???

[toldyouso21]

Facing growing opposition to the war among Americans, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said U.S. and British troops would need to stay in Iraq for one or two more years to help stem surging violence. "I think that in one or two years we will be able to recruit our forces, to prepare our forces and say goodbye to our friends," Talabani said in a speech to students at Cambridge University in England. Baghdad also dispatched senior officials to Capitol Hill this week to warn lawmakers that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would have disastrous consequences."

Someone should ask him why they aren't ready now. Posted by Iceman_1960 at 07:07 PM : May 11, 2007


No, somebody should ask him:"if you and the rest of Iraq can get your act together within the next 2 years, then *** have you been doing for the past 4 years? And where in the blankety blank, blank is all that US money you ******* stole?