Senate passes war-funds bill

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate approved funding on
Thursday for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
hurricane-recovery efforts, ignoring President George W. Bush’s
threat to veto the $108.9 billion bill as loaded with extra
spending he did not seek.

By a vote of 78-20, the Senate approved an emergency bill
that would spend $14.4 billion more than Bush requested. Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, backed Bush
by voting against the measure.

The House of Representatives passed a bill in line with
Bush’s request and the two chambers will try to work out their
differences by the end of this month.

Before completing the bill, the Senate cut $47 million in
foreign aid this year to Egypt. Of that, $35 million would be
reassigned for famine and disaster relief in Uganda, Kenya,
Ethiopia and possibly Somalia.

The Bush administration backed the change, said an aide to
Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who pushed the
amendment.

The remaining $12 million would help Guatemala rebuild in
the aftermath of last year’s Hurricane Stan.

Overall, the Senate bill contains $4.1 billion more in aid
for several countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan.

The emergency bill would provide a new injection of nearly
$66 billion the Pentagon says it needs by early summer to help
replenish combat equipment and recruit soldiers for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another $28.9 billion would be used for rebuilding
Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states after last
summer’s devastating Hurricane Katrina and other storms.

FIRST VETO?

Bush has objected to some of the storm-relief projects the
Senate included, as well as about $4 billion in farm aid.

“The president has made it very clear he would veto
legislation that goes above and beyond what he called for,”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said after the vote.

He predicted a veto, Bush’s first, would be upheld and
cited a letter from 35 senators backing Bush’s demand to put a
limit on the bill’s cost.

But at least 14 of the Republican senators who signed that
letter also voted for the $108.9 billion Senate-passed bill.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican,
took a hard line. “The House will not take up an emergency
supplemental spending bill for (Hurricane) Katrina and the war
in Iraq that spends one dollar more than what the president
asked for. Period,” he told reporters.

Some senators appeared to relish a showdown.

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on
the Senate Appropriations Committee, complained that Bush’s
request did not provide aid for a range of domestic disasters,
including fatal coal-mine accidents and farmers’ crop losses.
The Senate bill couples such funds to the war-funding bill.

“If the president wants to veto a bill that funds the
troops, if he wants to veto a bill that funds victims of
Hurricane Katrina … have at it, have at it,” Byrd said.

But even if the final bill falls within Bush’s $94.5
billion target, all the money would contribute to an
anticipated budget deficit of around $350 billion this year.

Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who tried to trim
the spending bill, complained on Wednesday there was no attempt
to cut elsewhere to make up for the new spending.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, said the bill’s
size resulted from a series of “unrealistically small” Bush
budgets, partly because they excluded war costs the
administration knew would have to be funded.