WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The White House said Friday officials are "confused and disappointed" by a measure offered by U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton withdrawing approval for the Iraq war.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino noted the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Harry Byrd, D-Va., was offered "only a few hours after (White House Chief of Staff) Josh Bolten had met with the Republican and Democratic leadership" over supplemental funding for the war. Tuesday, President Bush vetoed a $124 billion supplemental spending bill because it contained a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
"Well, we were slightly confused and disappointed when yesterday" Clinton, D-N.Y., introduced the bill to show what the senator's aides characterized as her staunch opposition to the war, Perino said.
"Look, I think that there's going to (be too) many attempts to try to put a surrender date on the calendar," Perino told the daily press briefing. "The president is not going to accept one. And I think that a little bit of last night, what you saw was a little bit of presidential politics, and we might see more of it, but the president has a principled stance that he is not going to change."
