Congress is this week expected to approve Barack Obama’s request for an extra $108bn for the International Monetary Fund, but it will come at a political price after weeks of grandstanding, messy compromise and horse-trading.
The request, tacked on to a $100bn (€71bn, £60bn) war funding bill, provoked a backlash in Congress as Republicans and some Democrats balked at what they called another bail-out, this time for foreign countries and banks. The administration had thought putting it in the war funding bill would speed its passage: which Republican would vote against money for US troops? But the move backfired and the administration spent last week scrambling for votes.
To win over a crucial group of liberal Democrats, it killed off an amendment that would ban the release of photos showing US military personnel abusing detainees. This brought the votes it needed but upset moderates and conservatives, who agree with Mr Obama that their release could spark retaliation against US troops.
There was also a compromise on Guantánamo inmates, who will be allowed to enter the US for trial – with Congress permission – but not to stay.
Critics say the administration played fast and loose with the legislative process over the IMF money and deserved to get burned.
“Unfortunately, rather than doing the right thing – stripping out the IMF money and passing a clean troop-funding bill – they chose to cater to the left of the left,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for John Boehner, Republican leader in the House. “It’s certainly not the way the president promised to govern during the campaign.”
So why has the president spent so much political capital trying to protect the IMF amendment, when he needs all he can get to enact his ambitious domestic agenda? In part, it is about his international standing. Mr Obama has called for the IMF’s members to triple its firepower to help it combat the global downturn, and promised at April’s Group of 20 meeting the US would contribute an extra $108bn, $100bn in the form of a credit line. He would face humiliation if he did not deliver.
But from the start, it looked a tough sell at home. “The most plausible explanation for the request – and the lack of proper debate and Congressional process – is that the funding would be used to bail out private European banks with US taxpayer money,” wrote Dennis Kucinich and Bob Filner, two Democratic congressmen, in a letter to their colleagues.
The administration first tried to win the intellectual argument. The Treasury put out a “fact sheet” explaining why the IMF needed the money. It also released a letter in support from a bipartisan group of big guns including Hank Paulson, Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice, former secretaries of Treasury and state.
However, the Republicans would not budge. They painted the war bill strategy as a cynical attempt to use US troops as leverage. They said the IMF money could end up going to countries associated with terrorism, such as Syria and Iran.
Without the Republicans, the bill was heading for defeat in the House. The only chance to get it through was to win the support of a score of the 50 antiwar Democrats. That cost the administration the photograph amendment.
The Senate was so upset that Mr Obama rushed over a letter promising to take “every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure the ... photographs are not released”.
Senior Democratic aides say the bill will probably be passed this week. But the manner of its passing has highlighted the limits to the administration’s power as it gears up for its biggest battle: the overhaul of the US healthcare system.
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Difficulties mount over Guantánamo closure
Over the past week the US has transferred more detainees from Guantánamo Bay than at any time since Barack Obama took office.
But the administration is facing mounting difficulties over his pledge to close the facility by late January.
“How can we say to our citizens that we are taking in Guantánamo detainees when the US refuses to?” asks a European diplomat.
The transfer of detainees is largely taking place on two tracks – repatriation of some to their native states and the shipping of others to third countries. A third route – sending inmates for detention or release in the US – has been subject to domestic political opposition.
Nine detainees have been transferred in the past week. About 230 remain. Roughly 530 were released or transferred during George W. Bush’s administration.
On Friday, three Saudi nationals were sent back to their home country. Earlier in the week, an inmate from Chad and one from Iraq – were also sent home.
But most attention was garnered by 17 Uighurs – Muslims who say they will be tortured if returned to their native China. After Germany balked at taking them, the US finally found alternative destinations. Four were sent to Bermuda. The others have been provisionally accepted by the tiny nation of Palau.
