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Democrats Stand Back as War Funding Continues
By Maya Schenwar
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 02 November 2007
In the next few days, a Congressional conference committee will likely pass
the largest defense spending bill in the history of the United States. Despite
Democratic lawmakers' promises to stop issuing blank checks for war, the bill
does not call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan, nor does
it prevent military action against Iran.
Though the current version of the defense budget does not contain funding specifically
for the war, money could easily be drawn from the budget and funneled into war
costs unless the language of the bill is changed to specifically prohibit that
usage, which it currently does not.
"A bridge fund is always possible," said OMB Watch policy analyst
Adam Hughes, referring to a measure that would cordon off funds in the defense
bill to be used only for war. "But even without it, they would have enough
in the budget to sustain what's currently happening."
Moreover, even if no baseline budget money is used for war costs, Congress
plans to continue financing the war at the current rate, House Defense Appropriations
Chairman John Murtha told the Congressional Quarterly on Wednesday night.
Congress is currently operating on a "continuing resolution," or
CR, which allows the war to be funded at the same levels it was funded last
year. According to Murtha, Congress plans to renew the CR in mid-November, allowing
war spending to continue unabated into the new year.
No proposals to impose restrictions on CR funds have been announced. Last month,
a group of Congress members pledged to add provisions for withdrawing all troops
from Iraq to any future war funding legislation, but that plan will not apply
to the CR, according to a spokesman for Congresswoman Barbara Lee, one of the
crafters of the plan. "We're really waiting for the debate on the supplemental
to bring that up," the spokesman said in an interview, adding that Lee
will probably not vote for the upcoming CR if it includes more funds for war.
Without a specific resolution barring all war funding, it would be virtually
impossible for Congress to end the war by the power of the purse alone, according
to Larry Korb, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former
assistant secretary of defense.
"You've already got the planes, the bombs, the people on the payroll,"
Korb said in an interview. "Congress can't stop the war unless they pass
a bill saying that no more money can be spent in Iraq."
When Congress considers Bush's war supplemental spending bill next year, it
will likely tack on several billion dollars, bringing the supplemental to more
than $200 billion, according to Murtha.
At that point, the war discussion will come into full swing, according to a
spokesman for Senate Defense Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye.
"When the supplemental comes up, there will be a full debate with a number
of proposals," Inouye's spokesman said. "We will look at ways to have
some sort of withdrawal schedule."
Included in that list of proposals will be Lee's plan to use all supplemental
money to redeploy troops from Iraq.
However, the war will not wait for the passage of the supplemental spending
bill. In these months before the supplemental comes to the floor, if the administration
deems more war funding urgently necessary, it could invoke the Feed and Forage
Act, an 1861 measure providing for defense-related emergencies, to draw funds
from the treasury, according to Korb. The Act was cited to support the war in
Vietnam and the Gulf War, and the Bush administration invoked it immediately
after the 9/11 attacks. Citing the Act to finance attacks on Iran would not
be unprecedented.
Some measures to immediately restrict war-related funding are on the table.
In February, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced a plan to use existing money
to bring troops and equipment home within three months of enactment. Also, last
week, Majority Whip Dick Durbin proposed a bill stating, "any military
action taken against Iran must be explicitly approved by Congress before any
such action be initiated."
"If this administration believes it has some authority from Congress for
the invasion of Iran, I challenge them to show me what that authority is,"
Durbin said on the Senate floor. "Before they initiate any offensive action
in Iran, they have to come to the Congress for the authority to do so."
Yet, it is unclear whether such proposals have a chance of getting heard before
the defense appropriations bill passes. The bill is usually not a contentious
matter, and Inouye's spokesman noted many in Congress are eager to keep it that
way. "There was some effort to include Iraq-related amendments, but Congress
didn't want the bill to be caught up with the Iraq debate," he said. "That
would've delayed action on the general bill."
Maya Schenwar is a reporter for Truthout.org.
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