Supplemental Spending Bill Passed. Signed by President


President George W. Bush signed the $120 billion emergency spending bill last week that will go largely to support military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What the bill did not contain was language setting troop withdrawal deadlines.

The House passed the spending package on a 280 to 142 vote, and the Senate approved it on an 80 to 14 vote May 24. One-hundred and forty Democrats in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, voted against the bill. The money, about $100 billion of the package, will cover expenses of military operations through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.

President Bush vetoed an earlier version of the bill May 1 that would have begun withdrawing American forces in October and said that he would veto any bill that contained similar language.

The bill did include 18 benchmarks that the Iraqi government is to meet. In a provision offered by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the President is to report in mid- July on the situation on the ground in Iraq.

“This is a very dynamic and changing situation in Iraq, every single day losing brave men and women in uniform and casting a greater burden on their families and the many wounded each day, each week,” Sen. Warner said. He added that waiting until September for an assessment was too late.

In early September, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force – Iraq, is to meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others in the administration and the Congress to report on progress in securing Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and adjoining al Anbar Province.

The bill also calls for independent assessment on the performance of the Iraqi government and the abilities of Iraqi military and security forces to control sectarian violence within 120 days.

Sen. Collins added, “This legislation will not only ensure that our troops get the funding that they need for training, for equipment, for other essential purposes, this legislation is also about accountability and consequences.”

Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said on the House floor, “Like it or not, we ran out of options. There has never been a chance of a snowball in Hades that Congress would cut off those funds to those troops in the field.”

The original request for the supplemental spending bill was presented to Congress in early February as part of a package that included the budget request for fiscal 2008.

“We have no artificial deadlines, no surrender dates, no shackles on our generals and our troops on the ground,” Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio and minority leader, said following the House vote.

In a press conference after the bill was passed, the President said the Iraqi government “needs to show real progress in return for America’s continued support and sacrifice.” Adding, “We’re going to expect heavy fighting in the weeks and months” ahead.

President Bush said that it was possible that he and the Democratic-controlled Congress could find common ground in the Iraq Study Group report in future assessments of military and political actions by the Iraqi government.

The battle between the White House and Congressional Democrats on troop withdrawal is not over. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said that he intends to include language to the defense authorization bill that mandates timelines during floor debate next month. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “With the defense authorization bill, we’re going to start right back where we’ve left off with” the supplemental.

However, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., took a different approach. Chairman Skelton fought successfully to keep the withdrawal language on Iraq out of his version of the bill in order to prevent a presidential veto threat.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said in a release that he intended to remove Iraq war funds from the Fiscal Year 2008 defense appropriations bill. He said he plans to introduce a separate bill in September on funding the war.


End Strength Increase, Boost to Future Combat System Funding and Rejection of TRICARE Fee Increases Approved by Key Panel

The Senate Armed Services Committee completed its mark-up of the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill last week. The committee addressed a number of AUSA-supported priorities in the bill including many provisions that will improve compensation and quality of life for the men and women in uniform. The Committee recommended:

--Authorizing $135 billion for military personnel, including costs of pay, allowances, bonuses, death benefits, and permanent change of station moves;

--Authorizing a 3.5 percent across-the-board pay raise for all uniformed service personnel;

--Authorizing payment of combat-related special compensation to service members medically retired for a combat-related disability. Payment is equal to the amount of retired pay forfeited because of the prohibition on concurrent receipt of military retired pay and VA disability compensation;

--Reducing below age 60 the age at which a member of a reserve component may draw retirement pay by 3 months for every aggregate 90 days service on active duty under certain mobilization authorities;

--Authorizing $24.6 billion for the defense health program, which includes a $1.9 billion adjustment by the Budget Resolution to fund TRICARE benefits in fiscal 2008;

--Authorizing the use of federal pricing for Pharmaceuticals dispensed through the TRICARE retail program;

--Adding $4 billion for mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles that will improve protection for our troops exposed to the improvised explosive device (IED) threat in Iraq and Afghanistan;

--Fully funding the President's budget request for $4.5 billion for the Joint Improvised Explosive Defeat Office (JIEDDO), directing JIEDDO to invest at least $50 million in blast injury research and over $150 million for the procurement of IED jammers for the Army;

--Authorizing fiscal 2008 end strengths for the Army and Marine Corps of 525,400 and 189,000 respectively, an increase of 13,000 for the Army and 9,000 for the Marine Corps;

--Repealing the existing authority of the Department of Defense to establish a new labor relations system under the National Security Personnel System (NSPS). This would guarantee the rights of DOD employees to union representation in NSPS. This provision would permit the Department to continue its effort to develop a new pay-for-performance system, if the system is implemented in a manner that is consistent with existing federal labor relations law;

--Requiring the Department of Defense to provide a regulation for armed contractors operating on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan;

--Directing the Department of Defense to study and develop a plan to address the findings of the Army medical department's fourth assessment of the mental health and well-being of soldiers and marines in Iraq, including findings that multiple deployments and lengthy deployments lead to increased mental health and marital problems and more frequent mistreatment of non-combatants. The committee also directed the Department of Defense to report on the extent to which these findings were taken into consideration in the decision to extend Army tour lengths in Iraq from 12 to 15 months;

--Requiring the Secretary of Defense to establish a Family Readiness Council and develop a comprehensive policy and plans to improve the support for and coordination of family readiness programs;

--Amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow certain spouses and children of service members residing under orders in foreign countries to treat their time accompanying the service member as residence in the United States for the purpose of satisfying citizenship requirements;

--Fully funding the President's budget request for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), adding $90 million to restore fiscal 2008 funding for the Armed Robotic Vehicles deleted in the recent program restructure, and adding $25 million to accelerate development of the FCS active protection system;

--Adding $2.7 billion for items on the Army Chief of Staff's Unfunded Requirements List, including $775.1 million for reactive armor and other Stryker requirements, $207.4 million for aviation survivability equipment, $102.4 million for combat training centers, and funding for explosive ordnance disposal equipment, night vision devices and machine guns;

--Adding over $450 million for defense science and technology (S&T) programs, for a total authorization of $11.2 billion;

The committee rejected the administration's proposal to give DOD broad authority to increase TRICARE program cost sharing amounts for military retirees and their dependents.

The committee also tightened the rules for Department of Defense acquisition of major weapon systems and subsystems, components and spare parts to reduce the risk of contract overpricing, cost overruns, and failure to meet contract schedules and performance requirements.

The Senate is expected to vote on the measure in June. The House passed its version on May 17. Once the Senate’s bill is passed, conference negotiations that will hammer out a final version will begin.