Bush tells Congress to pass Iraq funding

Bush tells Congress to pass Iraq funding


President Bush boards Marine One as he departs the White House in Washington, Friday, June 6, 2008. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari) (Haraz N. Ghanbari - AP)


The Associated Press
Saturday, June 7, 2008; 10:24 AM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, seeking to better his negotiating position ahead of votes on a huge Iraq war-funding bill, said Saturday that U.S. troops "deserve better" than the treatment they are getting from the Democratic-led Congress.

"This is an opportunity for Congress to give our men and women in uniform the tools they need to protect us, and Congress should approve these vital funds immediately," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Congress has had this funding request for more than a year, and there is no reason for further delay."

But the dispute over the hotly contested bill, and the delay in getting it passed, is as much as anything due to demands from Bush that Democrats find unacceptable.

The bill contains unrelated domestic spending beyond Bush's $178 billion war funding request and the president has threatened a veto if it doesn't come out. Meanwhile, the White House wants to add money to the measure to let troops transfer ramped up GI Bill education benefits to their spouses or children.

Bush said that any further delay in passage will have dire consequences, such as temporary layoffs of civilian employees next month and no more paychecks for troops after July.

"Our men and women in uniform and their families deserve better than this," the president said. "They deserve the full support of Congress. I often hear members of Congress say they oppose the war but still support the troops. Now they have a chance to prove it."


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I don't even know where I want to start on this, DOD was told to start budgeting all the war funds into the budgets 2 years ago, no more supplementals, yet here they are still doing add ons. The stock market just tanked due to the .5 percent rise in unemployment yesterday, which indicates the Senate is right in asking for additional unemployment benefits, the GI Bill MUST be improved per the Webb Bill, not the John McCain/Graham indentured servant version. If President Bush supported the troops he would reduce the Iraq forces to pre surge levels or less of 130,000 they have declared the surge over but there are now 10,000 more troops in Iraq than there was before the surge. He would fire the VA Secretary for comparing TBI to high school football in Alaska a week ago when he was campaigning with Senator Ted Stevens and said that to many veterans are being diagnosed with PTSD rather than adjustment disorder, similar words of that now infamous e mail from Texas VA worker MS Perez.

If the VA does not support the full treatment of veterans with PTSD and want to diagnose veterans that are still having PTSD symptoms more than 6 months after the incident, then they are violating the DSM4 standards up to 6 months they can say it is "battlemind" after 6 months of chronic problems it is then considered PTSDand the VA should be rating is as such. There is nothing that says they can't treat and review the veterans over the next few years and if they improve after treatment reduce the compensation, but to treat them all as malingering money grubbing bottom feeders, is just plain wrong, talk about creating a stigma? I can't wait until we get a Democratic President that will appoint a vet friendly VA Secretary rather than an advesarial types we have had since Sec Principi left.

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