Boost for war of $33 billion clears Capitol

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday sent President Barack Obama a $33 billion war-funding increase to pay for his troop buildup in Afghanistan, even though a trove of classified documents portrayed a military effort struggling between 2004 and 2009 against a strengthening insurgency.

The House voted 308-114 to approve the spending boost for the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Other nonwar provisions brought the total bill to nearly $59 billion.

Pentagon leaders have warned that money to fund the troops could run out as early as Aug. 7, prompting the House, which is leaving at the end of the week forits August recess, to accept the pared-down Senate version of the legislation, which lacked the domestic stimulus money of an earlier House version.

The bill includes more than $33.5 billion for the additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan and to pay for other Pentagon operational expenses; $5.1 billion to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund; $6.2 billion for State Department aid programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Haiti; and $13.4 billion in benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

The final bill does not include money for teachers and student aid and does not provide more than $4 billion requested by the administration to finance settlements of long-standing lawsuits against the government, including $1.2 billion to remedy discrimination by the Agriculture Department against black farmers and $3.4 billion for mismanaging Indian trust funds.

“We have a moral and legal responsibility to settle those claims,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., adding that he was “very disappointed” Senate Republicans did not go along with paying the settlements, although the costs would not have added to the federal deficit.

DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION

Republicans in Congress still were strongly behind the boost in war spending, but there was unusually strong opposition from members of Obama’s own Democratic Party. The bill was supported by 148 Democrats and 160 Republicans; 102 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted against it.

In debate before the vote, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the leaked documents revealed corruption and incompetence in the Afghanistan government.

“We’re told we can’t extend unemployment or pay to keep cops on the beat or teachers in the classroom, but we’re asked to borrow another $33 billion for nation-building in Afghanistan,” McGovern said.

With the new war spending, the total amount of money that Congress has allotted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan surpasses $1 trillion.

At a Senate hearing on prospects for a political settlement of the Afghan conflict, there was scant mention of the leaked material, posted on the website WikiLeaks, but there were repeated expressions of frustration over the direction of the fighting.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who has questioned the realism of U.S. goals in Afghanistan though he supports the war, pointedly asked why the Taliban, with fewer resources and smaller numbers, can field fighters who are more committed to winning than are Afghan soldiers.

“What’s going on here?” Kerry asked with exasperation.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a vocal supporter of the war, took issue at a separate hearing with anyone who would argue that the leaked documents buttress arguments for withdrawing now from Afghanistan.

“In actuality, the emerging picture from these documents appears to be little more than what we knew already: that the war in Afghanistan was deteriorating over the past several years,” McCain said.

MATTIS TESTIFIES

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis told senators at a hearing on his nomination to lead the military’s Central Command that, whatever other lessons are drawn from the WikiLeaks documents, no one should doubt that the U.S. is committed to staying in Afghanistan until it wins.

“We are on the right track now,” Mattis said, while predicting that the U.S. casualty rate would increase in coming months as still more U.S. troops join the fight against the Taliban.

If confirmed as expected, Mattis would oversee U.S. military operations across the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran.

“We will have some bad days ahead, but so long as we hold fast and adapt faster than the enemy, the enemy’s situation will continue to worsen,” Mattis told lawmakers.

Mattis defined success in Afghanistan as propping up an Afghan government that is stable enough to keep “extremists” from using the country as a terrorist base.

OBAMA ON LEAKS

In his first public comments on the weekend leak of tens of thousands of documents, Obama said it could “potentially jeopardize individuals or operations” in Afghanistan. But he also said the papers did not reveal any concerns that were not already part of the war debate.

Obama said the shortcomings in Afghanistan as reflected in the leaked documents explain why, last year, he undertook an in-depth review of the war and developed a new strategy.

“We’ve substantially increased our commitment there, insisted upon greater accountability from our partners in Afghanistan and Pakistan, developed a new strategy that can work and put in place a team, including one of our finest generals, to execute that plan,” Obama said. “Now we have to see that strategy through.”

In the House, Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said he was torn between his obligation to bring the funding bill to the floor and his “profound skepticism” that the money would lead to a successful conclusion of the war.

Even if there were greater confidence, he said, “it would likely take so long it will obliterate our ability to make the kinds of long-term investments in our own country that are so desperately needed.”

Obey, who in his leadership post was the chief author of the bill, said he would vote against it because he doesn’t support the administration’s war policies. “I cannot look my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than us,” he said.

Republicans complained the bill was identical to one passed by the Senate two months ago.

“The delay in passing this legislation was caused by one thing and only one thing - the House Democrat majority’s continuing and unwavering appetite for spending,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee.

DAMAGE CONTROL

The leaked documents are battlefield reports compiled by military units in Afghanistan that provide a groundlevel view of combat operations between 2004 and 2009, including U.S. displeasure over reports that Pakistan secretly aided insurgents fighting American and Afghan forces.

Even as the administration dismissed the leaked documents as outdated, U.S. military and intelligence analysts were caught up in a struggle to limit the damage contained in the once-secret files now scattered across the Internet.

In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was “appalled” by the leak, which he said had the potential of putting troops’ lives at added risk.

Officials also are concerned about the impact the disclosures could have on the military’s human intelligence network built up over the past eight years inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. The people in that network range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants working as double agents.

At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said efforts to explain to Afghanistan and other allies that the U.S. government played no role in leaking the documents seemed to have paid off.

“We’re very gratified that the response thus far internationally has been moderate, sober,” Crowley said.

PAKISTAN BILL DEFEATED

The leaked reports propelled efforts by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to push to bring U.S. military personnel home from Pakistan by year’s end.

The House voted 372-38 against the pair’s resolution to curtail military operations in Pakistan.

Leading Democrats said it went too far and could have undermined the U.S strategy for working to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

“Pakistan is an important partner in the fight against extremism,” said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Any attempt to cut the military ties of the two countries would be counter-productive.”

U.S. military involvement in Pakistan has been a delicate issue for both countries. Congress has not approved combat operations there, as would be required under the War Powers Act, and the Pakistani public is deeply opposed to American military involvement.

Approximately 230 U.S. troops are known to operate in the country, engaged in security assistance and training.

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns, Anne Flaherty, Jim Abrams and Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press, by Lisa Mascaro of Tribune Washington Bureau, and by Brian Faler of Bloomberg News.