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Dems Pass Another War Funding Bill That Bush Won't Accept
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
May 11, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - President Bush says he'll veto another Iraq war funding bill passed by the House on Thursday because it would keep money flowing to U.S. troops only until July.

"This idea of funding our troops every two months is not adequate," Bush said on Thursday. The president already has vetoed one war funding bill because it set a deadline to begin pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Two Republicans (Reps. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of N.C.) voted with 219 Democrats to pass the partial-war-funding bill. The final tally was 221-205. Ten Democrats voted against the bill.

Democrats -- and some Republicans -- are keeping the pressure on President Bush, who on Thursday agreed to accept a bill with "benchmarks" for measuring progress in Iraq.

"One message I have heard from people from both parties is that the idea of benchmarks makes sense -- and I agree," Mr. Bush said following a meeting at the Pentagon on Thursday.

But "benchmarks" alone are not enough, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

"The President has long said he supports benchmarks; what he fails to accept is accountability for failing to meet those benchmarks," Pelosi said in a news release.

"Benchmarks without consequences and enforcement are meaningless, a blank check," she said.

Pelosi cast President Bush as uncooperative and out of step with voters: "Vetoing one Iraq accountability bill [as Bush did last week] and threatening to veto another is not the kind of cooperation the American people voted for last November," Pelosi said.

The House on Thursday also voted on a bill that would end the war in Iraq within nine months.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) was rejected 255-171, but in defeat, McGovern saw victory.

"I didn't think I was going to get anywhere near 171 votes," the Washington Post quoted McGovern as saying. (169 Democrats and two Republicans voted for the bill, in what the Post described as a surprise for both sides.)

"It's a moment to keep pushing, not cave in," said the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org in a message to supporters on Thursday.

MoveOn and other liberal groups have seized on press reports that a group of Republicans vented their frustrations about the Iraq war in a meeting with President Bush on Tuesday.

The Republicans reportedly told the president that the war is hurting their party.

"Members really told the president, in I think the most unvarnished way that they possibly could, that things have got to change, that we're going to hang with him until September, but we need an honest assessment in September and people's patience is running very, very, very thin," said Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, one of 11 Republicans to meet with the president.

"As more and more Republicans break with the president, Congress should strengthen their efforts to impose a mandatory timeline for withdrawal," MoveOn.org said on Thursday.

Bush adviser Karl Rove is said to be furious that Republicans who met with the president later told reporters all about their "frank" discussion