House bill to restrict US reconstruction dollars

By ANNE FLAHERTY Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A new war spending bill proposed by House Democrats would prohibit using U.S. aid to rebuild towns or equip security forces in Iraq unless Baghdad matches every dollar spent, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The $195 billion measure would fulfill President Bush's demands for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan until the next president can set his or her own policy next spring. Lacking the votes to force troops home as they would like, Democrats are using the bill instead to assert to voters that the war is to blame for the nation's economic woes.

In addition to restricting U.S. aid, the bill would require Bush to negotiate an agreement with Baghdad to subsidize the U.S. military's fuel costs so troops operating in Iraq aren't paying any more than Iraqi citizens are.

A recent Associated Press report revealed that troops are paying the market average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, while Baghdad subsidies put domestic consumption inside the country at about $1.36 a gallon. Meanwhile, Iraq is looking toward a massive budget surplus this year. With the country's oil production on the rise and record-high fuel prices, Iraq is expected to reap some $70 billion in oil revenues.

"In effect, (the bill) says they have to come up with the money like we did," said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. The Pennsylvania Democrat said, "The public has lost confidence" that the U.S. government is committed to forcing Iraq to take responsibility for its own security and reconstruction.

Barring any unexpected developments, the bill would bring the amount approved by Congress since Sept. 11, 2001, to fight terrorism and conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to about $875 billion.

Other economic-related provisions in the bill include legislation that would extend by up to six months unemployment insurance coverage for jobless people whose benefits have run out. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said the measure would cost some $11 billion over 10 years.

Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan also would begin to receive a big boost in college aid costing $720 million through 2009 but expected to cost far more in future years.

Democrats have also tacked onto the bill a plan to block new Bush administration regulations that would cut federal spending on Medicaid health care for the poor by $13 billion over the next five years. The House passed that measure last month by a veto-proof 349-62 margin.

After weeks of secret meetings of top congressional Democrats, Obey revealed the outline of the bill just two days before the House is slated to pass it.

Democrats will try - as they have unsuccessfully in the past - to force the administration to bring the troops home. The bill would require that troops start leaving Iraq within 30 days of its enactment and set a nonbinding goal of withdrawing combat troops by the end of December 2009. It also would require that any troops deployed into a combat zone exceed the Pentagon's peacetime standards for being fully trained and equipped.

Murtha said enforcing such standards would effectively stop future deployments and end the war. However, both of these provisions are expected to fail in the Senate and be stripped from a final bill to be approved by the House this spring.

Overall, the measure provides $96.6 billion of the $100 billion requested by Bush to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of September, Obey said.

He said the $3.4 billion left over would be used to fund military base and hospital construction, additional food aid and cover shortfalls identified by the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Prisons.

The legislation also includes another $5.8 billion, as requested by Bush, to build flood protection levees around New Orleans.

On Iraq, the bill contains $66 billion Bush requested to fund the war into the next administration, giving the next president "a few months to get his or her act together," Obey said.

The move also lets Congress avoid a second war vote during the presidential elections.

Obey confirmed that the legislation is slated to advance in an unusual process in which it is broken into three separate pieces for votes in the House and Senate: war funding, anti-war policy provisions and domestic funding.

The idea is to allow anti-war Democrats to vote against the war funding - which Republicans will provide the votes to pass - while still ensuring the money goes out to support troops overseas. Democrats get to vote for restrictions on the war, but the provisions would never make it through the Senate to face a veto.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that unless Congress acts on the war funding bill by June 15, the Army will run out of payroll money, and the Defense Department would have to move cash from the Navy and the Air Force to pay Army soldiers. Murtha said Congress was on track to finish the bill before then and criticized the Pentagon for trying to scare soldiers into thinking they wouldn't get paid.

"We know that under no circumstances we wouldn't pay the troops," he said.

About $3 billion of Bush's request was devoted to reconstruction and relief programs, half of which would go toward the training and equipping mission.

The administration has been open to lawmakers' suggestions that Iraq assume more rebuilding costs, contending Baghdad is already on track to do so with regard to major infrastructure projects. But, depending on how the legislation is written, White House officials may be reluctant to restrict U.S. spending on rebuilding Iraq's military and police forces - the linchpin in Bush's exit strategy in Iraq.

The White House did not provide immediate comment on the proposal.

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Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.