At this morning’s White House press gaggle, press secretary Dana Perino, before the questions even began, took a shot at Congress over Iraq war funding.
“Congress, as you know, is away for its two-week break. They did not approve funding for our troops. Deputy Secretary Gordon England has said that these delays will result in a profoundly negative impact on the defense civilian workforce, depot maintenance, base operations, and training activities. Delays in funding mean that the Army and Marine Corps are immediately forced to begin shifting funds between accounts in order to keep operations running. And the Pentagon will soon be forced to send furlough notices for as many as 100,000 Army and Marine Corps civilian employees at bases around the country.
“We are calling on Congress and the Democrats in Congress to send the President supplemental war funding without arbitrary surrender dates and without micromanaging the war before they leave for their next vacation, which is going to be around the Christmas holidays. They only have about six legislative working days left, so they have a lot of work to do when they get back into town.”
Asked about the billions already allocated to the Pentagon in the current budget, Perino responded, “The Defense Department says that they need this funding in order to keep the war running.” She added that lawmakers, by not passing the supplemental funding package, are “pull[ing] the rug out from under” the troops.
As for the “furlough notices for as many as 100,000 Army and Marine Corps civilian employees at bases around the country,” Perino added that the process could begin very soon — and it’ll be all because of congressional Dems failing to “approve funding for our troops.”
Regrettably, Perino doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Again.
First, the House did approve funding for our troops, and passed the spending bill fairly easily. The same legislation enjoyed majority support in the Senate, but Republicans refused to allow a vote, because the funding included a phased-withdrawal measure supported by a majority of Americans and lawmakers. If the president wants the funding bill to pass, he should urge Republicans to stop blocking it.
Second, as some leading House Dems explained this morning, the Pentagon is not out of money, and these furlough notices are a cheap stunt.
At a press conference this morning, Reps. John Murtha (D-PA) and David Obey (D-WI) rebutted the administration’s scare-mongering by noting that just last week, Bush signed a $471 billion defense spending bill. That bill “contains enough money to continue military operations through mid-February, because of a provision that lets the administration shift money to the war from other Pentagon accounts.”
Murtha ripped the Pentagon’s “Rumsfeld-like” tactics aimed at “scaring the families of the troops” just ahead of the Christmas season:
“I thought we’d gotten rid of Secretary Rumsfeld, but this really worries me that there would be such a political document…. This is a political document. They’re scaring people. They’re scaring the families of the troops with this document. That’s the thing that’s so despicable about what they’re doing.
The “political document” Murtha references is a memo distributed by the Army Budget Office, warning that the Army may no longer be able to function unless Congress quickly passes the pending spending bill.
Just when it seems these guys can’t get any more shameless, they manage to turn things up a notch.