Bush is Going is Going to Veto Pay Raise for Troops

What's it going to take for people to wake up and realize "President" Bush has absolutely no interest in preserving what this country was founded on?

First he vetoes health insurance for poor kids, not once, but twice and now he wants to veto legislation, the Defense Authorization bill, that's already passed Congress. The extremely small pay raise, 0.5% out of the 3.5% the troops had expected, will be completely removed if Bush follows through and vetoes this bill. This "raise" doesn't even begin to compensate the troops for the hell they are trudging through over in Iraq, many of whom, if lucky enough to make it out alive, will come home either physically or mentally injured, sometimes to the point of no return.

Bush's objection centers on his fear of "massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime," from his father's war. It's strange that this is the first we're hearing of his concerns regarding this bill when clearly this legislation has been around long enough for President Bush to protest anything he found questionable long before this.

"The administration should have raised its objections earlier, when this issue could have been addressed without a veto. The American people will have every right to be disappointed if the president vetoes this legislation, needlessly delaying implementation of the troops' pay raise, the Wounded Warriors Act and other critical measures." -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a joint statement.

Senator Biden, the only Presidential contender with a specific exit strategy, criticized President Bush yesterday for his veto of the Defense Authorization Conference Report and called on him to immediately begin implementing the Biden-Brownback Resolution, the main provisions of the amendment urging the U.S. government to assist Iraq in devolving power from the central government.
“Yesterday’s tragic events in Pakistan underscore the sobering effects of our failed policy in Iraq. As I’ve said, when President Bush abandoned Afghanistan to go to war in Iraq, it sent a message to Musharraf that the U.S. might not be there to protect him.

Ending the war in Iraq would allow us to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and assist the Pakistani moderates in taking control of their country. And it would allow us to get our sons and daughters out of the middle of Iraq’s civil war.

Just moving to enact the Biden-Brownback resolution would bring the international community into the cause of long-term peace in the region. And we would further stabilize the region by committing to the bill’s provision that the U.S. foreswear any long-term military bases in Iraq.

This war must end and the Biden-Brownback resolution is the key to that endgame. It is essential that the President sign this provision as soon as possible and help the Iraqis implement the federal system called for in their Constitution." -- Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Chairman of the senate foreign relations committee