Black leaders Assail Bush's Iraq Veto

WASHINGTON, May 01, 2007, 6:50 p.m. -  On the fourth anniversary of President Bush's speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) issued the following statement in response to President Bush's veto of a supplemental spending bill for Iraq that included a goal of withdrawing U.S. troops by March, 2008:

"Four years ago today, President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, in front of a banner that said 'Mission Accomplished' and told us 'major combat operations [had] ended.'

"Since then 3,211 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and almost 25,000 have been wounded.

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"Today, the President has vetoed a bill that sets a goal for ending the occupation of Iraq, signaling his insistence on an open-ended commitment to a failed policy.

"Rather than change course, the administration offers only increasingly desperate rhetoric about victory and surrender.

"The fact is that you cannot 'win' an occupation, just as there is no way for the United States to 'win' an Iraqi civil war.

"The American people get this.  They recognize that this failed policy is making our nation and the world less safe, even if the Bush administration refuses to.

"Mr. Speaker, the American people are standing squarely behind us in our efforts to end the occupation of Iraq and to bring our troops home, and history will record the President's veto of those efforts with the same ridicule as it has his 'mission accomplished' remarks four years ago."

Cummings on Bush Iraq Veto: A Far Cry from 'Mission Accomplished'

Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, made the following statement regarding the veto of this bill:

"Today's veto of the Iraq Supplemental is a far cry from the 'Mission Accomplished' address President Bush made aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln four years ago today.

"If the mission had truly been accomplished, we could have saved 3,212 service members' lives that died following this 2003 address.

"And now, instead of setting the stage to end this war - President Bush is failing to face the reality regarding the true severity of this grim situation.

"In addition to the 3,351 total American military deaths in Iraq and 24,012 wounded, the war is estimated to have also taken the lives of anywhere between 63,000 and 655,000 Iraqi civilians, according to an Associated Press report.

"Far too many of our brothers and sisters, our children and grandchildren have died or come back home wounded.  Their sacrifices resonates a clear message regarding the need to change our course in Iraq.  Not only do we have an  obligation and responsibility to the American people, our service members and their families, we also have to listen to our conscience as human beings. 

"Now, achieving a true 'Mission Accomplished' requires the assistance of the international community and drawing on bilateral support that extends far beyond simply military operations.

"I call on my colleagues as members of Congress to heed to their conscious, heed to the deaths of their uniformed men and women of their constituency by voting to override the President's veto."

Conyers Denounces President Bush’s Iraq Veto

Congressman John Conyers, Jr. issued the following statement in response to President Bush’s veto of The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act:

“President Bush’s veto of the war supplemental bill yesterday sent a clear message to our nation and the world. Unwilling to heed the call of his own people, the international community, and most military and foreign policy experts, he is stubbornly committed to his failed stay-the-course policy in Iraq. With yesterday’s veto, the president told the world that he will not accept responsibility for his conduct of this war or demand accountability from the Iraqi government. He also told the American people that he will hold back critical funding for our troops and veterans so that he can continue to nurture his delusion that some sort of military ‘victory’ can be won in Iraq.

“Four years ago yesterday, President Bush declared ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq. Yet 3,342 American deaths and $379 billion later, we are still bogged down in the midst of a civil war. Ten weeks into the President’s escalation, the Iraqi government has shown little or no progress in achieving the key political benchmarks set by the Bush administration. In November 2003 there were 5,000 insurgents in Iraq, not counting Shiite militias; in March of this year, there were 70,000. As the number of hostile forces continues to increase, so does the number of American and Iraqi casualties.

“The experts and the American people agree: there is no military solution in Iraq. Democrats have provided a viable way forward that would both extricate our troops from the Iraqi quagmire and help rebuild this devastated country. The Democratic plan emphasizes multilateral diplomacy, economic aid and accountability for the Iraqi government combined with a phased withdrawal of American troops. I look forward to joining with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle today in voting to override the President’s veto.”

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