Posted by Mark Silva at 10:05 am, updated 12:10 pm CDT
A $100-billion war-bill is bound for President Bush’s desk, ready for certain signing.
And thousands of war veterans, celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Rolling Thunder,” will roll into Washington this weekend in commemoration of those who have died, and those still missing.
The president will receive the leaders of the Rolling Thunder brigade of motorcyle- mounted war veterans at the South Portico of the White House on Sunday. The riders of some of the biggest bikes in America will have assembled Sunday morning at the Pentagon, just across the Potomac River, and thundered into Washington.
As the veterans honor the casualties of conflicts past, the president will be equally happy to receive a supplemental war-spending bill for the military missions in Iran and Afghanistan – laden as it is with some other special deliveries: Including a two-year increase in the federal minimum wage, to $7.25 per hour, long sought by Democrats. The White House expects to receive that bill today, and says the president will sign it promptly — a signing that could come at Camp David, where he will retreat overnight.
Bush has fought for this war money for months, he vetoed the Democrats’ first attempt at attaching timelines for troop withdrawals to a spending plan and ultimately held out for a measure that demands some political “benchmarks” of the Iraqi government but carries no restrictions on the U.S. military as it completes a buildup of forces in Iraq.
In Washington, the political fallout is just beginning: Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican seeking his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, and rival Mitt Romney, chiding Democratic senators seeking their party’s nomination – Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois — for voting against the moneyl. McCain is playing for keeps: Accusing the Democrats of waving “a white flag to al Qaeda.”
From his campaign office in Arlington, just up the road from the Pentagon, McCain issued this statement this morning: “I was very disappointed to see Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it’s the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda.”
We called on the Clinton and Obama campaigns for response.
“This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war,” Obama said in an issued statement. “Gov. Romney and Sen. McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.
“And if there ever was a reflection of that it’s the fact that Sen. McCain required a flak jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago,” Obama said. “Gov. Romney and Sen. McCain are still supporting a war that has cost us thousands of lives, made us less safe in the world, and resulted in a resurgence of al-Qaeda. It is time to end this war so that we can redeploy our forces to focus on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and all those who plan to do us harm.”
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said in a statement issued by his campaign today: “At a time when the men and women of our military fighting terrorism around the globe needed them most, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama cast a vote that singularly defines their lack of leadership and serves as a glaring example of an unrealistic and inexperienced worldview on national security that is regrettably shared by too many of their fellow Capitol Hill Democrats.
“Voting against our troops during a time of war shows the American people that the leaders of the Democrat Party will abandon principle in favor of political positioning,” Romney said. “Their votes render them undependable in the eyes of the men and women of the United States military and the American people.”
On Sunday, the north Pentagon parking lot and overflow lot will fill with veterans on Harleys and other hogs, which will overrun the highways into Washington with a procession expected to last five hours.
“We are going to be taking our concerns to the White House,” says Debby Walter, a spokeswoman for Rolling Thunder, which will get something more than a photo-op but something less than a sit-down meeting with the president. Their chief concerns: “That is the POWs and MIAs and their families.”
On Monday morning, the president will lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery and make remarks about the sacrifices of those who have served the nation at war. And soon he will sign a bill that finances the war in Iraq through September, with the president predicting a rough summer, possibly a “bloody” August.
“Obviously, the loss of life is devastating to families,” the president said at a Rose Garden press conference this week. “I fully understand that. But I want to remind you as to why I sent more troops in. It was to help stabilize the capital.
“I would like to see us in a different configuration at some point in time in Iraq. However, it’s going to require taking control of the capital,” Bush said. “I didn’t think we could get there unless we increased the troop levels to secure the capital. I was fearful that violence would spiral out of control in Iraq… And so, therefore, the decisions I made are all aimed at getting us to a different position, and the timing of which will be decided by the commanders on the ground, not politicians here in Washington.”