Reply #72: So, which way is it?

[Lasher]

Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said that a 1956 law requires that the State Department be reimbursed. She added that Americans unable to pay could sign a voucher to reimburse the government.

<snip:>

But on Tuesday night Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice addressed the billing issue, telling Sen. John Sununu that she was waiving the requirement, Sununu's office said.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/18/lebanon.evacuation/index.html

According to Condi's assistant, it's not their fault they have to bill these people. The law requires them to do it.

Then The Chimperor gets a big black eye on the international stage because neither France, nor Ireland, nor Britain, nor Italy, nor Canada even dreamed of billing evacuees. So Condi decides to waive the requirement. How can she do that if the law requires State Department reimbursement?

It used to take an act of Congress to change a law, but I guess that's different now with the Urinary Executive who has war powers when no war has been declared. Or maybe they were just lying about the billing requirement, ya think?