Froomkin at the WaPo catches Bush making a signing statement.
Bush made another of his curious signing statements to the DoD 2008 appropriations bill
"This one says: "The Act contains certain provisions identical to those found in prior bills passed by the Congress that might be construed to be inconsistent with my Constitutional responsibilities (sections 8005, 8009, 8012(b), 8034(b), 8052, 8082, 8085, 8089, 8091, and 8116, and the provision concerning consolidation under the heading 'Operation and Maintenance, Defense Wide'). "
and section VIII
Bush has done this before
As before, a lot of the sections objected to, and which the White House presumably has no intention of obeying, related to reassignment of funding, initiation of classified action or new programs, without notification of Congress.
ie on the face of it, the statement asserts the President has authority to divert funding, including to foreign forces, and initiate classified programs and actions without notifying Congress or requesting budgetary permission.
They also object to a clause requiring that ALL future budget requests for Iraq of Afghan operations be included in DoD appropriations. ie Congress orders by law no more "emergency off-budget appropriations", and the White House intends to ignore this provision.
One pocket vetoes a little bit of earmarking, but the most curious one is 8082:
" None of the funds available to the Department of Defense may be obligated to modify command and control relationships to give Fleet Forces Command administrative and operational control of U.S. Navy forces assigned to the Pacific fleet:..."
ie the US can not detach Pacific Fleet units and attach them to other Fleets - presumably this is intended to stop units going to 5th Fleet at Cencom.
Huh??? - it is straightforward enough to order forces to 5th Fleet, this seems to suggest that 5th Fleet can't command units nominally under Pacific Fleet command - it sounds like a "no sneaking off and bombing Iran" provision - ie units can't be publicly attached to the Pacific Fleet while snuck off to 5th Fleet for operations, the reassignment must be by public order.
The Boland amendment counter claims and classified action stuff could be argued to be the White House making points of principle in the Unitary Executive struggle, but this Naval provision is a little bit scary.
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5th Fleet *is* in the Pacific Fleet.
From the USFLTFORCOM wbst: "On 1 October 2001, the Chief of Naval Operations designated CINCLANTFLT as concurrent Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command (COMUSFLTFORCOM); a new command responsible for overall coordination, establishment, and implementation of integrated requirements and policies for manning, equipping, and training Atlantic and Pacific Fleet units during the inter-deployment training cycle.
On 1 October 2002, COMLANTFLT became the Naval component commander for the newly-formed U.S. Northern Command, assuming responsibility for all U.S. Navy operational and training matters under Commander, U.S. Northern Command.
On 24 October 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed that the title of "Commander in Chief" be reserved solely for the President of the United States. In a message to Naval Commanders in Chief, the Chief of Naval Operations directed a change of title to that of "Commander." This change affected the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, U.S. Pacific Fleet, and U.S. Naval Forces Europe.
On 23 May 2006, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) issued OPNAV NOTICE 3111, Ser DNS-33/6U827232, that disestablished the Commander, Fleet Forces Command (COMFLTFORCOM) and Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (COMLANTFLT) and renamed COMLANTFLT to Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command (COMUSFLTFORCOM), ordered to carry out the missions currently performed by COMFLTFORCOM and COMLANTFLT and serve as primary advocate for fleet personnel, training, requirements, maintenance, and operational issues, reporting administratively directly to the CNO as an Echelon 2 command. All forces reporting to COMLANTFLT or COMFLTFORCOM will now report to COMUSFLTFORCOM effectively immediately."
Fleet Forces Command, therefore, is the old Atlantic Fleet, and its operational component is 2nd Fleet. Presumably this suggests the amendment refers to some sort of pork-barrel objection to units shifting from PAC to LANT?