Crawford (Texas): President George W Bush plans to veto a sweeping US defence policy bill on grounds that it would derail Iraq's efforts to rebuild its country, the White House said today.

Bush's action, which apparently caught congressional leaders off guard, centers on one provision in the legislation dealing with Iraqi assets. The legislation would permit plaintiffs lawyers immediately to freeze Iraqi funds and would expose Iraq to "massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

"The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States," Stanzel said in a statement.

House and Senate Democrats said today the first time they heard of any White House concerns with the legislation was after Congress had sent the bill to Bush for his signature. "The administration should have raised its objections earlier, when this issue could have been addressed without a veto," the leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, both Democrats, said in a joint statement.

"The American people will have every right to be disappointed if the president vetoes this legislation, needlessly delaying implementation of the troops pay raise, the Wounded Warriors Act and other critical measures." The provision that is causing problems would allow the victims of deceased Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to seek compensation in court, Democrats said.

Source : PTI