US lawmakers on Thursday voted to fund the Iraq combat in installments of just a few months, defying US President George W. Bush's veto vow in the latest tussle of a political feud over control of the war.
The House of Representatives voted by 221 votes to 205 to release US$43 billion in emergency war funds, but told Bush he must show progress in Iraq in July, before collecting another US$53 billion in financing.
"This legislation ends the blank check for the president's war without end," Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Bush "has grown accustomed to the free hand on Iraq he had before Jan. 4. Those days are over," she added.
The legislation now moves to the more closely divided Senate, where the split financing component appears unlikely to survive, lining up an intense round of legislative bartering over the bill Bush will be asked to sign.
The Democrat-led House had earlier rejected a largely symbolic bid by the majority party's anti-war block to get troops out of Iraq within six months of enactment.
Under-fire Bush earlier fought back hard, after Democrats gleefully pounced on signs of softening Republican backing for his last-ditch bid to surge nearly 30,000 more troops into war-scarred Iraq.
"I'll veto the bill if it is this haphazard, piecemeal funding, and I made that clear," he said after visiting the Defense Department.
Even if Bush vetoes it, the measure sets out the House's bargaining position for the final war-funding bill, which must be worked out with the Senate and the White House. All parties hope to strike a deal by the end of May.
Bush wielded his veto for only the second time last week to strike down a bill tying war funding to a Democratic timeline to start bringing home the 146,000 troops in Iraq in October, from a war which has killed 3,379 of their comrades.
But Democrats sense the president is increasingly vulnerable.
"I think this president is more isolated than any president since Richard Nixon in his final days," Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told reporters, referring to the disgraced former US leader who was forced to resign in 1974.
Bush did make an apparently conciliatory step by saying that Democratic demands that Iraq's government meet certain political and security benchmarks made sense.
But he stopped short of endorsing his rivals' call for robust penalties should the fragile Baghdad administration fall short.
Pelosi countered: "Benchmarks without consequences and enforcement are meaningless."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said: "One can only describe today's proceedings as grossly negligent."
Vice President Dick Cheney, who just visited Iraq, told Fox News that the benchmarks wrangle was simply "Washington talk" and noted Iraqis surely felt more pressured to act by raging violence than threats from Congress.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
RSS