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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 6, 2001
Bush repeats threat to veto defense bill
WASHINGTON -- President Bush threatened Wednesday to veto a defense bill containing more antiterrorism spending than he wants as lawmakers traded charges of using the effort to protect Americans for political gain.
A day before the Senate planned showdown votes, Bush stated his veto threat -- which he has made before -- directly to congressional leaders at a White House breakfast. Senate Democrats have produced a $35-billion package -- $15-billion over what Bush prefers -- for developing vaccines, bolstering border and airport security, financing the war in Afghanistan and helping New York and other areas with the costs of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The antiterrorism money is attached to this year's $318-billion defense budget.
White House officials sought to use that to their advantage.
"The president made it as plain as day that if the Senate were to send the president a bill that complicates our nation's defense needs, he will veto it," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
He added, "So why on earth would the Senate go through this exercise when it clearly won't go anywhere, other than to delay America's national defense needs?"
Unbowed, Democrats said they would resist Bush's contention that additional spending wait until next year, arguing the nation's ability to deter and track down terrorists needs to be strengthened now.
"Terrorists don't run on a fiscal year basis. Terrorists are operating all year long," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said.
WASHINGTON -- The Star-Spangled Banner will reverberate across the White House grounds at 8:46 a.m. Tuesday, marking the exact moment three months before that the first hijacked jet struck the World Trade Center.
President Bush, announcing the observance during an appearance in the Oval Office on Wednesday, asked America's allies to play their own national anthems or other songs at the same time.
Bush said he wanted the observance to send a signal to the terrorists responsible for those attacks:
"They want us to be silent. They want us to shirk from our duties. They want us to forget what took place on September the 11th. We will not do so. The United States won't do so and our friends and allies won't do so. We won't forget and we will bring them to justice. . . . Civilization is at stake."
In synch with the White House, the national anthem will also ring out from the Pentagon and sites in New York and Pennsylvania -- the three places where terrorist hijackers crashed jets on Sept. 11.
U.S. embassies and posts overseas will also participate, the White House said. And NASA is expected to hold a special remembrance in space, aboard either the space shuttle or the space station.
In a breakthrough for TV coverage of the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon will allow four network correspondents into the U.S. Marines camp south of Kandahar, the so-called Camp Rhino.
TV executives, who have been frustrated by a lack of access to the military since the war began, Wednesday called the Pentagon action a "relaxation" of current pool restrictions.
Viewers will see an immediate difference. Since the weekend, CNN's Walter Rodgers has been the only national TV reporter allowed into Camp Rhino, and his reports appeared on all the major networks (although his affiliation was not always identified).
Separately, Dan Rather left Afghanistan on Wednesday and will return to The CBS Evening News tonight.