The WaPo reports: President Bush vetoed a $124 billion measure yesterday that would have funded overseas military operations but required him to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq as early as July. (Pictured at right: the well-recognized banner backdrop of President Bush’s May 1, 2003 appearance on the USS Lincoln.)

Slate is running an excellent “Explainer” titled “What happens when a war spending bill gets vetoed”, written by Michelle Tsai with input from Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense and Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Here’s a key point on the Pentagon’s budget flexibility: “If necessary, the DoD can move $7.5 billion of the total operations budget to more urgent needs, like forces in Iraq. This is enough to fund operations and maintenance in the Army through most of July, according to the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Congress.”

On April 27, Slate’s “Today’s Papers” feature ran a piece titled “After the Veto” looking at post-veto options for Congressional Dems on the Iraq War: “Regardless, the process won’t be easy or short, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hopes they will have a new bill by June.”

For more positioning around the Iraq War supplemental bill, check out the official statement from Congressional leaders Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi, and the veto statement from President Bush.

One place to get a good overview of the blog buzz on both the left and the right surrounding President Bush’s veto is over at Memeorandum. Others, of course, are the pages here on OpenCongress of news results for the bill itself, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. We’ll be writing lots more here about the next steps for the Iraq War supplemental and the implications of President Bush’s veto.