Congress likely to pass White House 87 billion Iraq request: US lawmakers

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (AFP) - US lawmakers will likely approve an 87 billion dollar package the White House has said it needs to secure and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, but predicted that debate this week in Congress will likely be bitter and partisan.

Senator John Rockefeller told Fox News on Sunday that he will "probably end up" voting for the controversial funding package, but said it comes at great cost to taxpayers already facing a massive budget deficit and a stagnant US economy.

BizVantage – Serious business, investment and technology intelligence for a serious advantage.
Try the free, no-hassle 6 month trial!

"We don't have the 87 billion dollars that the president needs now," said Rockefeller, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"We're probably going to have to borrow it, and we'll probably end up giving it to him, but the American people are going to be very resentful about that," the West Virginia Democrat said.

After weeks of contentious debate, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee last week overwhelmingly approved nearly all of the White House request last week, and the emergency spending supplement is expected to be taken up this week in both the full House and the Senate.

Many lawmakers have criticized the 87 billion dollar figure as grossly bloated, however, and others accuse the White House of failing to provide a thorough accounting of the tens of billions of dollars already provided this year for the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.

There also has been disappointment at the administration's failure to convince other countries to contribute to the reconstruction effort.

Despite the unhappiness by some lawmakers about the size of the request, most concede that the passage of the funding package is all but assured.

The main battle, they say, is likely to center on proposals in both the House and the Senate to give some 20 billion dollars for rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure in the form of a loan -- with most of the rest of the 87 billion dollars going to finance the US military operation.

"I'm going to support whatever is needed to take care of our military needs. That's 67 billion of the 87 billion dollars," US Senator Frank Lautenberg told CNN.

"In terms of the 20 billion dollars, I think we've got to talk about it and see if we can't find better ways to do it than simply to give it to the Iraqis, while we need to rebuild schools and infrastructure in this country," the New Jersey Democrat said.

"People don't understand the rationale for that."

Republican Senator Jon Kyl argued that requiring Iraq to repay reconstruction money received from the United States would only prolong the time it takes the country to achieve self-sufficiency.

"If they have to repay it to us, it's going to be a long time before they're ever back on their feet and we'll not have the moral high ground in arguing to the Russians and the French and the other countries that have loaned (deposed Iraqi Presidenet) Saddam Hussein a lot of money, that they should forgive those debts," the Arizona Republican told CNN.

Lawmakers agreed that the congressional battle pitting grant payment vs. loan for Iraq's reconstruction is likely to be hard-fought.

"I think it's going to be a close vote, but I think the grant proposal's going to win," Republican Senator Mitch McConnell told Fox News.

"After all, who would we loan the money to?" said the Kentucky Republican. "We'd be loaning it to ourselves."

McConnell added that the loan proposal "plays into the hands of those who suggest that we went into Iraq to get their oil, to encumber their future."

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who is running for the White House, said the White House funding request underscores what he sees as mismanagement by the George W. Bush administration of the Iraq war and the postwar reconstruction.

"They rushed the war without a plan for the peace, and we are paying an enormous price for that now," Kerry told ABC television.

"The American people are asked to pony up 87 billion. This administration did not have a plan -- still does not have an adequate plan -- for how you minimize the cost to Americans and minimize the threat to our troops," Kerry said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the debate in Congress this week will likely not be the last time American lawmakers lock horns over how much money to dole out to Iraq, and in what form.

"What we need to recognize is that 20 the billion dollars is not the last of the spending" for Iraq's rehabilitation, Indiana Republican Richard Lugar told NBC television Sunday.

sg/mk

US-Iraq-funding-politics