The U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor Friday of ordering President George W. Bush to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq by September 2008.
At the White House, Bush responded by saying the bill was pushed by House Democrats, “in an act of political theater” and declared that he “will veto it if it comes to my desk.”
The Democrats, who’ve had a majority in the House since January “set an arbitrary date for withdrawal without regard for conditions on the ground. And they tacked on billions for pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror. This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal,” said Bush.
A transcript of his whole statement was posted on the White House Web site.
Ignoring previous White House threats of a veto, the divided House “voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008,” according to The Associated Press.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “called the legislation, which took the form of an emergency spending bill, ‘a giant step to end the war and responsibly redeploy our troops out of Iraq’ and concentrate on Afghanistan, ‘where the war on terrorism is,’ according to a report by The New York Times.