House sends defense bill back to committee for revision

The House agreed Tuesday night to send the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill back to the House Armed Services Committee, a move that will allow lawmakers to revise a provision that sparked an unexpected veto and bring it back to the House floor under the suspension calendar, likely Wednesday.

The action by voice vote constituted the House's first order of business for the second session of the 110th Congress -- an indication that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to resolve the issue quickly and move the defense policy bill back to the president's desk before the end of the month.

House leaders had been weighing whether to hold a veto override vote to publicly challenge the White House's assertions that its actions constituted a pocket veto, an absolute rejection that cannot be overturned by Congress.

Ultimately, lawmakers opted to avert a constitutional showdown with the White House over the bill, which authorizes an extra 0.5 percent military pay raise above the 3 percent hike for civilian federal employees and recruiting and re-enlistment bonuses.

The bill also contains a slew of policy initiatives aimed at beefing up oversight of both the Defense Department and its growing legion of contractors in the United States and overseas.

"Why should this end up in the federal courts whether a corporal gets his pay raise or not?" said House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who has been critical of the use of the pocket veto.

The best approach, he added, is to "do what we're doing."

On Dec. 28, President Bush surprised lawmakers when he announced he would not sign the authorization bill. He cited concerns that a little-publicized provision would tie up the billions of dollars in assets of the current Iraq government in court claims filed by Saddam Hussein's victims.

The provision, which Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., added to the Senate's version of the bill last year and then cleared House-Senate conference talks, would have allowed victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue foreign governments in U.S. courts.

The "fix" to the provision, lawmakers and aides said, would provide a waiver for the Iraqi government.

The provision still would apply to Iran and Libya, two other countries most affected by the language.

The provision, which Skelton called a "bipartisan, bicameral effort," also will include non-binding sense of Congress language urging the State Department to work with Iraq to redress abuses suffered by victims during Saddam Hussein's reign.

After a meeting Tuesday night, House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, suggested that Congress might revisit the issue in the future. "It's a fix for now," he said.

In addition to changing the disputed provision, Congress also will insert technical language into the bill to make the 3.5 percent military pay raise in the legislation retroactive to Jan. 1, aides said.