US President George W. Bush warned his Democratic opponents that he will fight any attempt to use the debate on war funding to undercut his controversial troop "surge" in Iraq. Speaking to a gathering of US state governors at the White House, Bush said he expected a "healthy debate" on the war but said he was concerned about any move by Congress to limit funding.
Bush said he would be "strongly defending the budgets we send up to Congress, to make sure those troops who are in harm's way have the resources and that we have the flexibility necessary to ... execute the plan we've laid out." Congress must vote in the coming weeks on Bush's request for 93.4 billion dollars in supplemental funding this year for the "war on terror," and a request for 141.7 billion dollars to cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008.
Some Democrats, who now hold a majority in Congress, see the debate as an opportunity to block a military buildup in Iraq that they regard as an escalation of the war. They have taken aim at the deployment of more than 21,500 troops in addition to the 140,000 already there. Bush insists this "surge" is needed to stop the sectarian bloodshed and secure Baghdad and western al-Anbar province.
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