ujp on the democrats bill:
The anticipated veto of the Iraq war funding bill demonstrates the extent of White House extremism. Bush is not rejecting a "bring all the troops home and end the war" bill but rather rejecting a compromise bill that would provide $100 billion to continue the war, would set only a "goal" of removing some troops by March 2008, would allow 60-80,000 troops to remain indefinitely, would not restrict a U.S. attack on Iran, would allow the 100,000+ U.S.-paid mercenaries in Iraq to continue with only insignificant restrictions, would require Iraq to accept a new oil bill, and would allow Bush to ignore suggested requirements for adequate training, equipping and rest of U.S. troops.
(...) More significantly, like the earlier draft the bill exempts from the "redeployment" four categories of troops which together could constitute up to 60,000-80,000 troops. They include training, counter-terrorism, and protection of U.S. diplomatic positions (such as the huge Green Zone) and personnel. It allows maintaining the over 100,000 mercenaries who back up U.S. troops in Iraq, calling only for 15% of the U.S. funding for mercenaries to be made contingent on certain benchmarks being met. Like the earlier bill it takes no steps to restrict the president's ability to attack Iran, and demands that the Iraqi government pass a new oil bill. (The oil bill under parliamentary consideration would not simply divide Iraq's oil wealth, the feature U.S. officials and media like to point to, but would privatize control of a huge proportion of Iraq's oil industry and resources in the hands of private international oil companies, with special privileged access likely for U.S. companies.) And like the earlier drafts it would allow Bush to simply announce his intention to ignore the Pentagon's own requirements regarding providing troops with adequate training, equipment, and rest between deployments.
(...) Congressmembers are not afraid that an end to funding, and thus an end to the war, will actually hurt the troops, but they are very much afraid of newspaper headlines and Sunday talk show hosts accusing them of abandoning the troops. There is a better chance that Congress could overcome its fear and thus make feasible this seemingly impossible scenario if the peace movement, speaking with and for the antiwar majority of the American people, maintains absolute clarity on our core demand to end ALL funding for the war. That includes opposition to all funding for the war regardless of rhetorical restrictions. Of course a decision to authorize $50 billion would be much less damaging than one authorizing $100 billion; but that does not mean we should support a bill authorizing $50 billion. Rather, our continued principled opposition to ANY funding for waging an illegal war will provide the best support to those in Congress who might be considering efforts to qualitatively reduce actual funding for the war, or to impose real and not just rhetorical restrictions on White House freedom to wage unlimited endless war. Congress is not the peace movement. It is an institution designed to make compromises; we help our friends most if we don't.