The Washington Post - "Republican Leaders Want More Money To Support Obama'S Plan To Add Troops In Iraq"

News Article

By Karoun Demirjian

Republican leaders in Congress are demanding President Obama seek additional funding to pay for new troops heading to Iraq and those staying in Afghanistan, potentially setting up a bitter political fight just as lawmakers are negotiating a final defense policy bill.

The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees on Monday both offered qualified support for the Obama administration's plan to send 560 more troops to Iraq as part of preparations to seize the city of Mosul from the Islamic State. They warned, however, that the president could not expect to conduct such operations without asking Congress to cut a new check.

"These operations will not pay for themselves," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement, arguing that the government "cannot continue to ask our troops to do more around the world by raiding funds needed to modernize their equipment and support their training."

[Pentagon will send hundreds more troops to Iraq following seizure of key airfield]

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), McCain's House counterpart, stressed that Obama must send Congress a formal budget request because his recent announcements concerning troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan mean "the United States will now be deploying thousands more troops than we have budgeted for."

But budgeting more for defense alone, even to support an expanding campaign against the Islamic State and other extremist groups, is a recipe for discord in Congress. Democrats insist military spending cannot increase without boosting funding for domestic programs by an equal amount.

Republicans defense hawks contend the current budget does not provide enough spending to keep the military strong.

"It better not be a rule that we are only going to support the people who serve our country, risk their lives, we're only going to support them if we put an equal amount of money into these domestic things," Thornberry said during a talk at the Heritage Foundation last week. "To connect the two and basically hold the military hostage in those political battles is wrong at every level."

Democrats accuse Republicans of repeatedly trying to undermine a bipartisan two-year budget agreement struck last year that boosted spending for both defense and domestic programs and last week Senate Democrats blocked a Pentagon spending bill to highlight their complaint.

[With spending bills stalled, focus turns to avoiding a shutdown fight this fall]

A similar fight is playing out over the annual defense policy bill, where the argument is about whether Congress should use a war funding account to pay for programs that are part of the Pentagon's regular budget. Using the war funding effectively allows Republicans to get around budget caps to find more money for military priorities. Last year, Obama vetoed the first version of the annual defense policy bill to land on his desk when Republicans tried the same maneuver.

A similar situation could play out this year. The House's version of the defense bill uses an extra $18 billion in war funds to pay for regular Pentagon programs.

House and Senate negotiators haven't finalized this year's defense policy bill, but with both McCain and Thornberry insisting on more funds to support the administration's policy changes, it is highly likely Congress is heading for a veto showdown with the White House.

"The President has the authority to request increased defense funding to meet emerging national security requirements," McCain said in his statement Monday. "It is time he use it."

Source