GovernmentExecutive.com

In case you missed it last week, next year's military pay raise (and by extension, the civilian raise, which is typically closely linked to whatever the troops get) got dragged into the whole debate over whether and when to pull our troops out of Iraq.

First, on Friday, President Bush made the following statement at the White House:

In February, I submitted to Congress a Defense Department spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year that will provide funds to upgrade our equipment for our troops in Iraq and provides a pay raise for our military -- it's a comprehensive spending request that Congress has failed to act on. Instead, the Democratic leaders chose to have a political debate on a precipitous withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. The House and Senate are now scheduled to leave for their August recess before passing a bill to support our troops and their missions. Even members of Congress who no longer support our effort in Iraq should at least be able to provide an increase in pay for our troops fighting there.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't take kindly to the insinuation that Democrats didn't care whether troops got a salary increase next year, and quickly fired back:

While Democrats have fought for a pay raise for our troops all along, the President was against the pay raise before he was for it. Two months ago, his Administration explicitly opposed Democratic efforts to give our troops a 3.5 percent raise and threatened to veto legislation if the pay raise was passed by Congress, calling it "unnecessary."