A Thanksgiving Day Threat from George W. Bush [VIDEO]

This post, written by Faiz Shakir, originally appeared on Think Progress

The Bush administration is threatening that it will issue furlough notices to up to 150,000 civilian workers at military bases in mid-December if Congress does not approve unrestricted Iraq funding immediately. As part of this campaign, the Pentagon is distributing a document warning that the Army may cease to function if it does not receive the funds now. (View the document here.)

At a press conference this morning, Reps. John Murtha (D-PA) and David Obey (D-WI) rebutted the administration's scare-mongering by noting that, just last week, Bush signed a $471 billion defense spending bill. That bill "contains enough money to continue military operations through mid-February, because of a provision that lets the administration shift money to the war from other Pentagon accounts."

Murtha ripped the Pentagon's "Rumsfeld-like" tactics aimed at "scaring the families of the troops" just ahead of the Christmas season:

I thought we'd gotten rid of Secretary Rumsfeld, but this really worries me that there would be such a political document. ... This is a political document. They're scaring people. They're scaring the families of the troops with this document. That's the thing that's so despicable about what they're doing.