posted April 04, 2003 at 12:01 p.m. MDTDid "The Little Guy from Shawinigan" work his magic again? Apparently Canada dodged a bullet. (Yesterday techno-fascist Perles vowed that Canada would regret holding to its own independent foreign policy.)
House and Senate Approve Bush's Wartime Spending Request [nytimes.com] [...] The $1 billion in assistance to Turkey was approved after intervention by the Bush administration, but late in the evening, the House voted to punish France, Germany, Russian and Syria for their opposition to the war by cutting them out of any federal contracts to rebuild Iraq.
[...] The State Department opposed the amendment, arguing that it would undermine its effort to build an international coalition to reconstruct Iraq, but proponents said the government should not reward countries that actively worked against American interests.
"This amendment sends a signal to our allies that we appreciate those who support us in our time of need and remember those that have sought to thwart coalition efforts to defeat Saddam Hussein's regime," said Representative George R. Nethercutt Jr., Republican of Washington."
