Yesterday, I voted to uphold President Bush’s veto of legislation which would bind any funding for operations in the War in Iraq with timelines to withdraw all combat troops.  I voted to uphold the President’s veto of the Iraq funding bill for two reasons: first the bill includes several arbitrary deadlines for the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq and second, the Democrat leadership added $21 billion in non-emergency funding to buy the votes of members who would have otherwise opposed the bill.  The bill originally passed by a narrow vote of 51% in the U.S. House and 53% in the Senate.

Setting arbitrary deadlines to retreat from Iraq would have been like giving our enemies a clock counting down from today.  We must leave the administration of war to the generals on the ground and not the politicians in Congress.  The policy of setting surrender dates is as foolish as it is dangerous and I am glad the House upheld the President’s veto.

Apparently, Democrats thought it was more important to prove to the liberal wing of their party that they had a plan for retreat on the Global War on Terror.  This is not how the majority of Americans, and certainly the vast majority of my constituents, want Congress to act.  Now that Democrats have made their political point, it is time to get back to work so we can fund the troops.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 am and is filed under Politics, Foreign Policy .