A House of Representatives panel moved on Wednesday to cut $800 million that was requested for a special fund for training and equipping Pakistan’s military in counterinsurgency tactics. The move appears to reflect wariness on the part of lawmakers toward the government of Pakistan, which they said failed to find Osama bin Laden for years until the US military killed him a year ago. It however agreed to maintain aid to Israel and Egypt at the administration’s requests.
Democratic Representative Jesse Jackson Jr accused Pakistan of “harboring a fugitive” and likened the US-Pakistan relationship to a “bad marriage.”
Given the animosity toward Pakistan, the $800 million request for counterinsurgency efforts was an easy target, although the measure would permit transfers from other accounts to make up for some or all of the shortfall.
“It is a difficult relationship,” said Rep. Kay Granger, the foreign aid measure’s lead author.
The measure also would boost funding to help Mexico and Colombia fight drug gangs. But lawmakers denied the administration’s request for $770 million to support political and economic reforms in the Middle East and North Africa in the aftermath of last year’s Arab Spring anti-government uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
The $48 billion measure won voice vote approval by the panel, including the committee’s senior Democratic member, Rep. Norm Dicks, who is supporting an early set of spending bills despite a blanket veto threat from the White House. The administration’s threat comes in response to a move orchestrated by Republican leaders like Speaker John Boehner of Ohio to cut $19 billion from the $1 trillion-plus set aside for agency budgets.
