Bush promises he’ll veto defense bill

WACO, Texas – President Bush said Friday that he will veto the defense authorization bill because of Iraq’s concerns the legislation could hinder redevelopment efforts by entangling the country’s assets in court claims by victims of Saddam Hussein.

Bush said he is ready to work quickly with Congress in January to fix the bill, which also contains a 0.5 percent pay raise for U.S. troops and reforms to veteran health care services. A 3 percent pay raise for the military approved separately by Congress will not be affected by the veto.

Although the president objected to some details in the bill that authorizes major military programs, his aides said he does not seek to reopen those debates. But a provision that he said would permit plaintiffs’ lawyers to freeze Iraqi funds would, according to Bush, do intolerable harm to the country’s reconstruction efforts and the U.S. relationship with Iraq.

“Iraq must not have its crucial reconstruction funds on judicial hold while lawyers argue and courts decide such legal assertions,” Bush said.

The announcement drew immediate rebukes from congressional Democrats, who criticized Bush for not raising objections before the bill was passed. The Democrats also disagreed with Bush’s interpretation of the provision and said they were exploring ways to challenge the veto.

“This bill is important to our men and women in uniform,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It is unfortunate that the administration failed to identify the concerns upon which this veto is based until after the bill had passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the President for signature.”

Bush insisted in his statement that he will work quickly with Congress to pass a new version of the defense bill once lawmakers return in January. He urged congressional leaders to make the 0.5 percent pay raise retroactive to Jan. 1 in the revised bill.

He also said that though he expressed concern about the provision weeks ago, those doubts have grown stronger in recent days.

At issue is a provision of the defense bill that would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. It was championed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., as a way to give victims of state-sponsored terrorism legal recourse. Such victims would be entitled to sue countries in U.S. courts.

In a statement, Lautenberg said the measure was intended to extend redress to victims of such state-sponsored terrorist attacks as the Iran-led bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and Libya’s downing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Lautenberg’s statement did not address whether the measure also created the unintended consequences for Iraq cited by Bush.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who helped negotiate the defense bill, said he agreed with the president’s assessment of the measure’s negative consequences. The legislation would allow Iraqi assets to be frozen immediately, before the merits of a case are heard.

“The president is doing the right thing,” Warner said. “It’s in our national security interests, and it’s the right thing to try to preserve what I perceive as a strengthening of the relationship between our government and the Iraqi government.”

In his “memorandum of disapproval,” which he will send to Congress along with the unsigned bill, Bush also said the language could harm the United States’ reputation as a safe place to invest assets.

The implication is that Iraq would contemplate pulling out its billions of dollars in assets currently invested in U.S. banks rather than see them frozen and tied up in litigation.