By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

NORTHERN Marianas is confident that U.S. President George W. Bush will veto the Iraq war spending bill which includes provisions increasing the federal minimum wage, the commonwealth and American Samoa.
"I understand that a presidential veto of the bill is expected because of policy differences over the Iraqi war," NMI Washington Representative Pete A. Tenorio said in his State of the Washington Office Report on Friday morning.
"I was further informed that a new version of the CNMI and American Samoa minimum wage which is more realistic for both territories, is being considered for introduction," he added.
Tenorio favors a tiered-wage system for the CNMI similar to American Samoa.
The local business community said it is not totally against increasing the islands’ $3.05 an hour minimum wage but prefers that it be implemented gradually.
Governor Benigno R. Fitial, on the other hand, expressed disappointment over the development on the islands’ wage issue amid concerns on its impact to its already fragile economy.
"We are disappointed in the recent Conference Committee report recommending increases in the commonwealth’s minimum wage level to the federal level. The committee’s proposal is attached to legislation dealing with the funding of the Iraq war, which Congress passed (on Thursday) and is now on its way to the White House where we understand the president will veto it," said the governor.
He said his administration will work with the committee on the issue and would seek a study before any changes on the islands’ minimum wage is implemented.
"We hope that the Congress will recommend a study by the Department of Labor of the impact on the commonwealth economy of these periodic increases in our minimum wage at an early point in the process," he said.
The islands’ $3.05 an hour minimum wage was last set in 1996 when the price of gasoline in the pump was sold for just over a dollar a gallon. Now unleaded gasoline is sold at $3.30 a gallon.
The Associated Press reported the Democratic-controlled Congress cleared legislation Thursday to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
The White House dismissed the legislation as "dead before arrival."
The 51-46 Senate vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage a day earlier it underscored that the war's congressional opponents are far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a Bush veto.
Democrats marked Thursday's final passage with a news conference during which they repeatedly urged Bush to reconsider his veto threat.
"This bill for the first time gives the president of the United States an exit strategy from Iraq," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin.
The bill would provide $124.2 billion, more than $90 billion of which would go for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Democrats added billions more for domestic programs, and while most of the debate focused on the troop withdrawal issue, some of the extra spending also has drawn Bush's criticism.
The vote occurred nearly four years after Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier before a banner that read "Mission Accomplished" — and 113 days after Democrats took power in Congress and vowed to change course in a war that has cost the lives of more than 3,300 U.S. troops.
During Vietnam, a longer and far deadlier war for U.S. forces, Congress went years before it was able to agree on legislation significantly challenging presidential war policy.
In the current case, any veto override attempt would occur in the House, and even Democrats concede they lack the votes to prevail.
With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at his side, Reid said Democrats hoped to have a follow-up war-funding bill ready for the president's signature by June 1.
Despite administration claims to the contrary, he said that was soon enough to prevent serious disruption in military operations.
Democrats have long argued that Republicans must choose between a politically unpopular war on the one hand and a president of their own party on the other. With the Associated Press