U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007

Bill summary
The 2007 supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan was introduced as H.R. 1591, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007. 

As passed out of committee, the bill would:
 * Funding: Provide $95.5 billion to continue funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through the end of the 2007 fiscal year - September 30, 2007.
 * Withdrawal timelines: Require that U.S. combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq beginning by March 1, 2008 and completed by August 31, 2008. This timeline would be accelerated if President Bush failed to certify that the Iraqi government had not met the benchmarks he laid out in January 2007 when he proposed the troop surge in Iraq.
 * Troop rest and outfitting: Establishes requirements that troops only be deployed if fully trained and equipped and be given one year off between deployments (which would slow their deployment for Bush's troop surge in Iraq) though President Bush would be permitted to waive the requirements.
 * Walter Reed: Specify that none of the appropriated funds may be used to close Walter Reed Army Medical Center (where poor conditions for wounded soldiers had recently been the subject of heavy scrutiny).
 * Domestic spending: Provide $28.5 billion in domestic spending, including money for agriculture and veterans' and low-income children's health care.

Contains billions of dollars in earmarks
The $124 billion spending bill contained billions of dollars in earmarks. These included:


 * $25 million for spinach growers hurt by a 2006 E. coli outbreak
 * $75 million for peanut storage
 * $500 million for wildfire suppression
 * $120 million for shrimp and Atlantic menhaden fishermen
 * 4 billion for farmers who had suffered weather-related losses
 * $2.9 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, including $1.3 billion for New Orleans levee repairs
 * $260 million to dairy farmers for milk loss
 * $100 million for citrus loss protections
 * $40 million to Liberia for security assistance, as well as $100 million to Jordan for the same purpose
 * $450 million for food aid to Sudan and Eastern Chad, Africa; Afghanistan, Southern Africa and the Horn of Africa.
 * $10 million for the ongoing mitigation of pollution of the Rio Grande from U.S. and Mexican influences and flood control on the river.
 * $50 million for asbestos removal in Washington, D.C.

Bush threatens veto
The Bush administration, in keeping with what it had repeatedly said in the past, said on Mar. 8, 2007, that it would veto any bill containing withdrawal timelines. The decision to attach funding to a deadline for withdraw was immediately criticized by administration officials and many Republicans in Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democrats of “twisted logic,” stating “If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us.” House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) agreed with Cheney’s assessment, and stated that Democrats were “not able to come up with a strategy” for victory. He promised to do everything in his power to defeat the measure from passing in the House.

House Armed Services Committee Chair Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) defended the bill, stating “This is not the war on terror. This is an Iraqi war, which is separate and distinct from the war on terror, and people ought to understand that…The only solution is for the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security.”

Bill passes committee on Mar. 15
On March 15, 2007, the House Appropriations Committee approved the Iraq supplemental spending bill by a vote of 36-28. No amendment for a faster withdraw was approved. Every Democrat but Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) voted for the bill. Lee had never voted to approve any money for the war in Iraq (she also voted against the war in Afghanistan in 2001).

Rep. Lee proposes amendment to withdraw from Iraq by end of 2007
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, proposed (but did not introduce) an amendment to the supplemental bill on Mar. 8, 2007 that called provided funding only for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. armed forces personnel and contractors - and for their continued protection - from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2007.

In support of the amendment, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) stated “No more chances. No more waivers. No phony certifications. No more sending millions of dollars to send our children into the meat grinder that is Iraq...It is time to spend the money to keep them safe and bring them home.” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) echoed the view, stating “The Lee Amendment makes sure the money is there to bring troops home...People are looking for leadership [to get the troops out of Iraq]. Here it is.”

On Mar. 15, when the House Appropriations Committee passed the 2007 supplemental bill, Lee stated that she was refraining from offering her amendment during committee "out of respect for [Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.)]." The leadership-backed supplemental then moved to the floor of the House.

Moveon.org supports supplemental in controversial poll
On March 19, Moveon.org endorsed the bill after giving its members a choice (through an online survey) of supporting, opposing or being “not sure” of the plan proposed by the Democratic leadership. Many, including members of MoveOn, argued that the poll results were misleading. First, only 4% of the recipients of the email (about 126,000 members) responded to the poll. Second, the wording of the question did not give members the option of preferring the Lee amendment, or any other more aggressive withdrawal plan.

House passes bill; Lee amendment not offered
After heavy lobbying by the Democratic leadership, many strongly anti-war Democrats backed away from the effort by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) to muster votes against the leadership-backed supplemental in favor of the Lee amendment alternative. Originally, Out of Iraq Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that 20 to 25 members of the caucus would oppose the bill. Factors included:
 * One anonymous democratic lawmaker sympathetic to the Lee amendment specifically said that “Rahm Emanuel (chair of Democratic caucus from Illinois) told us a vote against this bill is a vote to give the Republicans victory” and said Democratic leaders had “made clear” to him that they may deny funding requests that he made for projects in his district if he failed to support the bill.
 * Similarly sympathetic Democrats cited the MoveOn endorsement of the leadership-backed supplemental as hurting their cause.
 * At least one Democrat, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus, said through a spokeswoman that domestic spending for his district added to the supplemental swayed his vote.

On March 23, the House passed the bill, 218-212, with only 14 Democrats voting against and only 2 Republicans voting in favor. No amendments, including Lee's, were allowed under the rules of debate for the bill, though at least one commentator, David Sirota, said that this was because "had amendments been allowed, progressive lawmakers knew that Lee's amendment would fail and worse, that Republicans would offer an amendment to eliminate the antiwar provisions out of the existing bill that such amendment would unfortunately pass by a wide margin, and that this stripped down supplemental would pass with 300 votes - again, a scenario that would be a major setback for the antiwar movement (and a similar situation that would have happened had the supplemental been voted down altogether)." Sirota also said that Lee did not offer her amendment when it was in her committee, the House Appropriations Committee, because "she likely calculated that it would have been defeated in committee and that such rejection would have been a major legislative setback for the antiwar movement."



President Bush threatens veto; House Republicans show support
The entire House Republican caucus was invited to the White House to show support for President Bush’s threat to veto the $124 billion war spending bill. The meeting came on the same day (March 27, 2007) that the Senate gave final approval to a $122 billion war spending bill that called for the withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) soon sent a letter to President Bush signed by 154 House members indicating that they would sustain his veto of the Iraq supplemental spending bill. The letter cited arbitrary restrictions on the military leaders and excess pork-barrel projects.

In response to the political stalemate between the White House and Congress on the Iraq spending bill, Republican House members called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to cut a House recess short in order to "finish its work on the emergency legislation to fund the Global War on Terrorism."

Dem-backed bill similar to House's introduced
On March 22, 2007, the Senate Committee on Appropriations considered a $122 billion appropriations bill that included a timetable for withdrawal. Similar to the resolution considered in early March 2007 (which failed, 48-50), it would require President Bush to begin redeploying troops from Iraq in the summer of 2007, with most combat forces being out by the end of March 31, 2008. The March deadline, however, would not be binding. At that point, the bill would call for just a limited number of troops to remain in Iraq for the purposes of training Iraqis and combating terrorism. Like the House supplemental bill, it also included funding for active-duty troops and veterans services, including health care. Small differences between the House and Senate versions included:


 * The Senate authorized $49 billion for defense, while the House allotted $53 billion (President Bush requested of $50 billion).
 * The Senate authorized $11 billionfor disaster relief, while the House allotted $10 billion (Bush requested $3 billion).

Similar to the House spending bill, the Senate spending bill included billions of dollars in earmarks. These included:


 * $100 million for state and local law enforcement agencies in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul to provide security for next year's presidential nominating conventions.
 * $1.2 billion for small-operation dairy farmers
 * $24 million for sugar beet growers in the Red River Valley
 * $20 million to combat Mormon crickets.
 * $4.2 billion in disaster aid for farmers hurt by drought, floods and other disasters in recent years.
 * $6.7 billion to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, including housing aid, public infrastructure funding and aid to Gulf Coast fishermen.
 * $500 million to combat Western wildfires.

On March 23, 2007, the Senate Committee on Appropriations passed the Iraq supplemental spending bill by a voice vote.

Amendment to remove withdrawal provisions defeated
On March 27, the Senate considered an amendment (S.Amdt.643) introduced by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to strip the withdrawal deadline from the bill. The amendment was defeated, 48-50. Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.), joined most Democrats in opposing the amendment. One Democrat, Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) said he voted with Republicans in backing it because while he supported withdrawing American troops and setting a timeline, he did not feel as though the date should be made public. Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an independent in support of President Bush's Iraq policy, voted in favor of the amendment. Two Sens., Hagel and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), had just two weeks earlier opposed identical withdrawal language in a Iraq resolution brought before the floor. Democrats needed both of their votes to defeat the amendment.



As he did after the House passed its spending measure, President Bush again promised to veto any bill calling for the removal (or complete withdrawal) of U.S. combat troops from Iraq. He stated "The consequences of imposing such a specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous...Our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars. They'd spend the months ahead plotting how to use their new safe haven once we were to leave. It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C. to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) responded by stating “This is a new thing for the president...In six years he’s had one veto, because he’s basically gotten everything he wanted.” He maintained, however, that he would like to reach a compromise with the White House, stating, “I would like to have a bill that he wouldn’t veto.” Despite the defeat, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed confidence following the vote that Bush’s request for a “clean spending bill” (one without any calls for withdrawal) would ultimately pass. He stated, “It may take two tries to get there, but I think that’s very likely going to be the final outcome.”

Passage in Senate
On March 29, 2007, the Senate passed the supplemental spending bill, 51-47. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), the lone Democrat who had favored a failed attempt to strip a withdrawal timeline from the bill, joined every other Democrat in supporting final passage of the measure. Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) again voted with Democrats in favor of the bill, while independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) opposed it.



Following the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stated, "We've spoken the words the American people wanted us to speak...There must be a change of direction in the war in Iraq, the civil war in Iraq." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), an opponent of the bill, declared that the bill would "embolden the enemy and it will not help our troops in any way."

The House had passed a similar supplemental spending bill the previous week, and the two chambers planned to meet in conference to settle the differences between the bills in the near future.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) expected the Senate to pass an Iraq Appropriations bill without provisions for withdraw, if President Bush Vetoes the current bill. "My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course... I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage," he said.

Bush threatens veto of timetable
On April 3, 2007, reacting to the bills that passed in both the House and Senate setting a timetable for troop withdrawal, President Bush state that "if either the House or Senate version of this bill comes to my desk, I will veto it. And it is also clear from the strong support for this position in both houses that the veto would be sustained." The potential veto would be only Bush's second (the first being of a bill expanding embryonic stem cell research in the July of 2006). In the meantime, the two versions of the bill were attempting to be reconciled in both chambers of Congress.

Conference committee
On April 23, 2007, House and Senate Democrats reached a compromise over the Iraq war spending bill. The final version would:


 * War funding: Authorize $124 billion in additional spending. $95.5 billion would go the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was $4 billion more than President Bush requested.
 * Withdrawal timelines and benchmarks: Codify the benchmarks established by President Bush when he proposed the surge, and links withdrawal timelines to them. Bush would have to certify that progress was being made towards the benchmarks by July 1, 2007, otherwise U.S. troops must begin withdrawing immediately, with a non-binding "goal" for complete withdrawal of combat forces by the end of 2007. If the benchmarks were being met, troop withdrawals would begin no later than Oct. 1, with a non-binding "goal" for complete withdrawal of combat forces by April 1, 2008. Even after the withdrawal of combat forces, U.S. troops could remain in Iraq to protect U.S. facilities and diplomatic missions, fight Al Qaeda and other terrorists and train Iraqi forces.
 * Walter Reed: Provide $20 million for repairs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and keep it open for the present.
 * Veterans' healthcare: Provide $1.8 billion for veterans' healthcare that Bush had not requested.
 * Troop training and equipment: Provide funding for troop training and equipment beyond what Bush had requested.
 * Homeland security: Provide $2 billion for homeland security unrequested by Bush.
 * Minimum wage raise: Raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years, the first raise in 10 years.
 * Tax cuts: Cut taxes by $4.8 billion over ten years.
 * Earmarks: The bill was stripped of funding in the initial House or Senate versions, including money for peanut storage facilities, Christmas tree farms, sugar cane farmers, beet farmers and Spinach farmers. It did, however, contain billions more in earmarks, including:
 * $20 million for Walter Reed Army Medical Center
 * $60.4 million to help Pacific Coast salmon fishermen
 * $94.1 million to repair California levees
 * $100 million more than either version provided
 * $400 million in energy assistance for low-income families (the lower amount from the initial House version)
 * $425 million for a rural schools and roads program that was about to expire
 * $500 million for wildfire emergencies
 * $650 million for the State Children's Health Insurance Program ($100 million over the initial House and Senate versions)
 * $3.5 billion in agricultural assistance (less than was in the House or Senate versions)
 * Nearly $7 billion for Gulf Coast recovery

President Bush promised to veto the bill, or any other that included a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Passage by the House
On April 25, 2007, the House of Representatives passed the spending bill, 218-208. Two members changed their previous vote (from the original House spending bill). Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) voted "present" instead of "no." Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) voted "yes" instead of voting "no". Two Republicans, Reps. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) again voted in favor of the bill, while thirteen Democrats opposed it.



Passage by the Senate
On April 26, the Senate followed the House in passing the supplemental spending bill, 51-46. Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), supported the measure. Each Democrat voted in favor of the bill, though Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) joined most Republicans in opposing it. Following the vote, the Bush administration quickly confirmed that President Bush would veto it. Acting White House Press Secretary Dana Perino stated, "The Senate has now joined the House in passing defeatist legislation that insists on a date for surrender, micromanages our commanders and generals in combat zones from 6,000 miles away, and adds billions of dollars in unrelated spending."



President Bush vetoes bill
On May 1, 2007, President Bush vetoed the bill, as promised. He stated, “I look forward to working with members of both parties to get a bill that doesn't set artificial timetables and doesn't micromanage and gets the money to our troops…I believe there's a lot of Democrats that understand that we need to get the money to the troops as soon as possible.” Bush invited congressional leaders to the White House on May 2 to discuss a possible compromise.

The House attempted to override the veto on May 2, 2007. The attempt failed with a vote of 222-203, short of the two-thirds necessary to override.



Opposition to perceived unnecessary spending
According to a Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group committed to being an "independent voice for American taypayers," the House bill initially provided $95.5 billion for the Department of Defense, $4 billion over the White House request and $3.5 billion more than the Senate. Overall, the group concluded that the versions of the bill proposed by the House and Senate "leave the President’s $103 billion request in the dust," and, moreover, entail "spending more on wasteful programs [that do] little to increase security."

External resources

 * TheWeekInCongress
 * H.R.1591: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007

External articles

 * Mike Soraghan, "House panel approves Iraq supplemental" The Hill, March 15, 2007.
 * Jonathan Weisman, "War bill includes tempting projects" The Hill, March 20, 2007.
 * Shailagh Murray, "Senate Democrats Float War Bill Similar to That in House," Washington Post, March 22, 2007.
 * Elana Schor and Roxanna Tiron, "Supplemental clears committee with a new GOP backer in sight," The Hill, March 23, 2007.
 * Elana Schor, "Senate votes 50-48 to keep withdrawal date for troops", The Hill, March 28, 2007.
 * Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray, "Senate Sets Stage For Iraq Face-Off", Washington Post, March 30, 2007.
 * Bob Geiger, "Democrats Move To Cut Bush's War Funding If Iraq Withdrawal Vetoed," BobGeiger Blogspot, April 2, 2007. See Text of Feingold-Reid bill.
 * David Swanson, "You Can't Hurt a Troop by Defunding a War," OpEdNews, April 8, 2007.
 * "Levin: Senate Will Keep Paying for War," Associated Press (ABC News), April 8, 2007.
 * Chuck Neubeauer, "War funding won't be cut, senator says. But pressure must be kept on Bush for a political settlement in Iraq, the Armed Services Committee chief says," Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2007.
 * Patrick O'Connor, "Republicans reject partial war-funding bill,"The Politico, May 8, 2007.