It was politics as usual in Washington, as President Bush decided he could issue a “pocket veto” of the 2008 defense authorization bill, killing the bill at midnight on Dec. 31, but Congressional leaders claim such a move was illegal. The holdup, at least temporarily, has cost US military members point five percent of their Congressionally approved 3.5 percent pay raise. The Administration has taken exception to a provision it says would jeopardize relations with Iraq. Democrats claim the President had ample opportunity to address this issue before both the House and Senate passed the bill. On the use of the “pocket veto,” The Hill reports that a constitutional scholar says Bush is on “weak ground” because such vetoes traditionally are issued while Congress is away for months and unable to work on a potential override.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
