Alberto Gonzales Resigns as Attorney General

The decision left the Bush administration scrambling to promise that it will work quickly with Congress to restore dozens of new military and veterans programs once Congress returns to work in January.

Those included an added pay raise for service members, which would have taken effect Tuesday, and improvements in veterans' health benefits, which few elected officials on either side want to be seen as opposing.

Bush's veto surprised and infuriated Democratic lawmakers and even some Republicans, who complained that the White House failed to raise its concerns earlier. And it gave Democrats a chance to wield Bush's support-the-troops oratory against him, which they did with relish.

"Only George Bush could be for supporting the troops before he was against it," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said in a statement, reworking a familiar Republican attack during his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004 that he supported the war in Iraq before he turned against it.

The veto was an embarrassment for administration officials, who struggled to explain why they had not acted earlier to object to the provision, Section 1083 of a 1,300-page, $696 billion defense authorization bill.