A House panel of US lawmakers agreed to a proposal by Representative Jeff Flake to tighten congressional oversight over $1.1 billion in counterinsurgency funds approved for Pakistan, giving Congress 30 days to review administration spending plans before 75 percent of the funds could be released.
Lawmakers urged President Barack Obama to step up the pace of US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan as well and endorsed tougher oversight of US spending in Pakistan as the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee debated defence spending for next year. The panel approved $649 billion in defence spending for the 2012 fiscal year on a voice vote, including $118 billion for wars abroad, and forwarded it to the full House for consideration, expected later this month.
The Senate is still working on its version of the bill. The two houses must pass the same bill before sending it to Obama for his signature. The $649 billion for the Pentagon’s base budget plus overseas operations like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was nearly $22 billion less than the spending approved for the current fiscal year, mainly due to falling costs associated with the Iraq war. But Democratic Representative Norman Dicks warned the cost of the conflict in Afghanistan was becoming unsustainable.
“I am increasingly convinced that the administration has to accelerate the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and at the same time work for a political settlement,” Dicks said.