Did Democrats Slip Veto Bait Into The Defense Bill?
We all know the Democrats want to deny our troops in Iraq the funds they need to complete their mission there. Mostly because, for Democrats, victory in Iraq is the worst possible scenario when it comes to their political agenda. They have invested nearly all of their political capital in the idea of Iraq as a lost cause, and they simply can’t afford to be wrong on that. So they can’t let us win.
Unfortunately, they also can’t come right out and deny our troops funding for the war either. With the majority of the public fiercely opposed to the concept, doing so would be political suicide. So they need to deny our troops funds, or at least delay those funds, in an oblique manner.
And one way of doing that is to include in war funding legislation some “veto bait” that is sure to draw the ire of the President. That way, when the bill gets held up, it’s the President’s fault and not the Democrats’. At least, that’s how they can spin it anyway.
CRAWFORD, Texas – President Bush plans to veto a sweeping defense policy bill on grounds that it would derail Iraq’s efforts to rebuild its country, the White House said Friday.
Bush’s action, which apparently caught congressional leaders off guard, centers on one provision in the legislation dealing with Iraqi assets. The legislation would permit plaintiffs’ lawyers immediately to freeze Iraqi funds and would expose Iraq to “massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
“The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States,” Stanzel said in a statement.
Bush is absolutely 100% right on this. We simply cannot let Iraq’s rebuilding be set back by a bunch of American trial lawyers trying to exact a pound of flesh for the misdeeds of Saddam Hussein. Not only is the current regime in Iraq not responsible for what Saddam did, trying to hold them responsible for what that monster did go a long way toward ensuring that Iraq does not become a flourishing democracy but instead slips back into the hands of strongman tyrants not all that unlike Saddam.
Bush is trying to protect the Iraqi people. The Democrats aren’t, and in fact are actually trying to expose the Iraqi people to liabilities that aren’t theirs to carry purely for political purposes.
