United States Senate passes $626 billion Pentagon budget
**** $128 billion earmarked for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan***
WASHINGTON: The US Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would bring total spending for the Afghanistan war to about $300 billion.
The $626 billion measure, passed 93-7, also would ban outright any transfer of accused enemy combatants into the United States from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility. Current law permits transfer of detainees to face trial or go to prison. The underlying bill combines $128 billion for overseas military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with $498 billion for the rest of the Defence Department’s budget.
Including that figure, an analysis by congressional researchers puts the total for Afghanistan at about $300 billion since Sept. 11, 2001. The bill must now be reconciled with a measure that passed the House of Representatives weeks ago and then will be presented to President Obama for his signature.
Beside Guantanamo, the most controversial issues to be resolved in House-Senate talks may involve efforts by House lawmakers to skirt an Obama veto promise on the legislation over funding over-budget replacement helicopters for the presidential fleet. Obama has issued a weaker veto threat over efforts to keep funding a programme to develop a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force’s major new weapons system. Tuesday’s measure would bring to above $1 trillion the amount approved by Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the latest analysis by the Congressional Research Service. There also is ample scepticism in Congress that Obama’s Iraq and Afghanistan funding request will be sufficient to last the entire 2010 budget year, which ends Sept. 30. The measure does, however, give Obama and Defence Secretary Robert Gates a partial victory in their drive to kill off weapons systems that are far behind schedule and over budget. The Senate bill, for instance, follows Obama’s push to kill the F-22 air-to-air combat fighter and the VH-71 replacement presidential helicopter. It does not contain money for the second engine for the F-35. The House bill contains $560 million for the alternative engine. The White House issued a squishy veto threat, saying Obama would kill the bill if it would “seriously disrupt the F-35 programme.” It is widely expected that the final House-Senate measure will include money for the second engine.
In twin victories for the Boeing Co., the Senate measure includes $2.5 billion to fund 10 C-17 cargo planes, which were not requested, and $512 million for nine more F-18 Navy fighters than Obama requested. ap
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