New York Times (December 28, 2007).
By STEVEN
LEE MYERS and DAVID
M. HERSZENHORN
And then on Friday, with no warning, a vacationing
Mr. Bush announced that he was vetoing a sweeping military policy bill because
of an obscure provision that could expose Iraq’s
new government to billions of dollars in legal claims dating to Saddam
Hussein’s rule.
The decision left the Bush administration
scrambling to promise that it would work with Congress to quickly restore
dozens of new military and veterans programs once Congress returns to work in
January.
Those included an added pay raise for service
members, which would have taken effect on Tuesday, and improvements in
veterans’ health benefits, which few elected officials on either side want to
be seen opposing.
Mr. Bush’s veto surprised and infuriated Democratic
lawmakers and even some Republicans, who complained that the White House had
failed to raise its concerns earlier.
And it gave Democrats a chance to wield Mr. Bush’s
support-the-troops oratory against him, which they did with relish.
“Only George Bush could be for supporting the
troops before he was against it,” Senator John
Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement, reworking a
familiar Republican attack during his unsuccessful presidential campaign in
2004 that he supported the war in Iraq before he turned against it.
The veto was an embarrassment for administration
officials, who struggled on Friday to explain why they had not acted earlier to
object to the provision, Section 1083 of a 1,300-page, $696 billion military
authorization bill. It would expand the ability of Americans to seek financial
compensation from countries that supported or sponsored terrorist acts,
including
It was unclear how the provision had been
overlooked by White House lawyers. A senior administration official told
reporters in a hastily arranged conference call that the bill’s consequences
for
It was also an embarrassment for some in Congress,
including Republican senators who sponsored the provision, like John Cornyn of
“The White House prepared a very detailed legal
memorandum, and I am convinced that they are correct,” Mr. Warner said in a
telephone interview.
While removing the provision would involve only a
minor amendment, the veto could reopen many of the contentious issues that
stalled the legislation’s approval in the first place, including efforts by
Democrats to impose conditions on spending for the military operations in
At a minimum, the veto will provoke a fight over an
issue that was put into the legislation after no public debate. The Senate
sponsor, Frank
R. Lautenberg, Democrat of
“My language allows American victims of terror to
hold perpetrators accountable — plain and simple,” said Mr. Lautenberg, who has
long championed expanding legislation to let victims sue foreign governments.
In a “statement of disapproval,” or pocket veto
that lets the bill expire on Dec. 31, Mr. Bush said that the provision could
result in preliminary injunctions freezing Iraqi assets in American banks — $20
billion to $30 billion, according to a senior administration official — and
even affect commercial ventures with American businesses.
He also warned that it was written to revive
dormant legal claims, including a $959 million judgment won by American pilots
who were prisoners of war during the Persian Gulf war
in 1991. The administration had declared the new government exempt from claims
dating to Mr. Hussein’s government, which the
“Exposing
A senior administration official said, “The Iraqis
certainly did raise very serious and strong concerns about this, which were
confirmed as we really dived into this and gamed out the consequences.” The
White House allowed the official to speak only if not identified.
Mr. Bush’s aides have already begun negotiations
with Congress to remove the provision or rewrite it to exempt
The White House also said it would make an added
raise Congress approved for service members — a half-percent above the 3
percent increase that will take effect regardless — retroactive to Jan. 1,
2008, no matter when a final bill is approved.
The final military spending bill was adopted by
overwhelming margins, 370 to 49 in the House and 90 to 3 in the Senate.
It was Mr. Bush’s eighth veto, an executive power
he has used with greater frequency with Democrats in control of Congress.
Because he used a pocket veto — allowing the legislation to expire 10 days
after it was passed by the House — his decision cannot be overridden. Adding to
the uncertainty, Brendan Daly, a spokesman for the House speaker, Nancy
Pelosi, said Friday evening that the House was reserving its right
to schedule an override vote anyway, arguing that the president’s pocket veto
was not legally viable.
Mr. Daly said House officials believed that, under
their interpretation of the rules, Mr. Bush technically could not use his power
to pocket veto the measure.
Still, Ms. Pelosi and the majority leader, Senator Harry
Reid of
Some lawmakers accused the administration of siding
with the Iraqi government over Americans who had suffered in terrorist attacks,
a sensitive charge for a president who has made the fight against terrorism the
central theme of his presidency.
“It is a shame,” Representative Ike Skelton,
Democrat of Missouri, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a
statement, “that the White House has taken this step to satisfy the demands of
the Iraqi government for whom our troops have sacrificed so much.”