$100 Billion More for War

May 27, 2007

On Thursday, May 24th, the U.S. Congress approved nearly $100 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next four months. The next day, President Bush quickly signed the bill into law while adding "We are going to expect heavy fighting in the next weeks and months and we can expect American and Iraqi casualties."

The so-called emergency spending bill, hailed by Republican and Democratic congressmen as a "bipartisan compromise" actually provides Bush with more than $12 billion in war funds than he originally requested.

After many weeks, in which Democratic leaders claimed they were not going to submit to "Bush's war program," many admitted they had no intention of voting against the money. David Obey, Democratic chairman of the Appropriations Committee stated "There has never been a chance of a snowball in Hades that Congress would cut off those funds to those troops in the field." Upon passage of the bill, Republican leader John A. Boehner of Ohio proclaimed "Thank goodness we are finally here. We have no artificial deadlines, no surrender dates, no shackles on our generals and our troops on the ground."

This latest military funding bill shows that, despite the massive opposition of the American people and the ever-growing Iraqi resistance, the U.S. government plans to continue and escalate the war. It also reveals, for the millionth time, that the war is a bipartisan policy carried out by the Republicans and Democrats.