Crawford (US): President George W Bush has clashed again with Congress over the Iraq war, vowing to veto a US military spending bill on the grounds it would throw up legal obstacles to reconstruction money.

"The aggregate financial impact of these provisions on Iraq would be devastating," Bush said in a memo released by the White House, outlining his reasons for rejecting the 2008 National Defence Authorisation Act

The bill "would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts and ... Would undermine the foreign policy and commercial interests of the United States," he said.
A key provision of the bill would expose the Iraqi government to "massive" demands for compensation from victims of Saddam Hussein's regime, deputy White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

The administration believes Iraqi funds in the United States would be frozen when a claim was filed, blocking money desperately needed for Iraq s reconstruction. "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.

Senior administration officials estimated Iraqi assets in the United States at up to USD 30 billion, not including joint US-Iraqi ventures.

Bush on Wednesday signed a different, USD 555 billion catch-all budget bill for 2008 that includes USD 70 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars without any timeline for troop withdrawal.

Source : PTI