House Passes Second War Funding Bill, Bush Talks Compromise

Despite a presidential veto threat, and with less than ideal support in the senate, the House of Representatives passed the incremental funding bill.

Here the Washington Post explains the basics of the bill

“The first, $43 billion, would be released immediately, with new standards for resting, training and equipping troops and a slate of benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet. Bush would be required to submit to Congress by July 13 three reports -- on Iraqi progress in relation to the benchmarks, on which of the goals had been met and on how many Iraqi combat units are ready to operate on their own. About 10 days later, the House would vote again, first on whether to cut off funding for further combat in Iraq and then on whether to release the remaining $53 billion.”

That same article reports that a much tougher bill that was voted on shortly before the incremental bill. The anti-war bill would have all US troops out of Iraq within nine months. The bill fell short of a majority but garnered unpredicted support. 171 members of the House voted to end the occupation of Iraq, about 40 votes short of passing. It is an encouraging sign.

This comes on the heels of Bush publicly announcing that he would allow a bill with benchmarks, so long as they weren’t binding. Pelosi and Reid fired back that a bill without penalties for failing to meet benchmarks is pointless.

It is unclear what this compromise means to the actual language of the final bill, some republicans favor tying rebuilding funds to political benchmarks. That’s right, if the piecemeal, illegitimate, occupied regime of Iraq cannot undue a two-thousand year conflict, rebuild a shattered infrastructure, and write an equable constitution, they don’t get the money to rebuild the shit we bombed. RIDICULOUS! The President could support that shitty plan or they could form a new plan in negotiations with senate Dems. Wait and see…