Senate Approves Billions More to Fund Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The Senate signed off Thursday on $165 billion in new spending to fund fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through next spring, as the military brass testified that bloodshed in Iraq had fallen to its lowest levels in four years.

"We are on our way to victory," President Bush told troops at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

In a political rebuke to Bush, though, two dozen Republicans backed the addition of tens of billions of dollars in domestic spending to the supplemental war funding bill.

Bush has threatened to veto the bill due to the additional tab, which includes an estimated $51.6 billion, over ten years, in new money to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans pay for college tuition.

Nearly 1.6 million U.S. forces have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Of those, about half - 837,458 - have left the military.

The bill, which passed the Senate by a veto-proof margin of 75-22, also includes an extension of unemployment benefits worth an estimated $11.1 billion over ten years.

The legislation next goes to the House, which last week rejected a similar version of the so-called emergency supplemental war spending bill.

If approved, the money would bring to $818 billion the total amount the country has spent, or will spend, on fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through next spring, according to calculations made by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Separately, the Senate rejected, in a 63-34 vote, a Democratic-led measure that would have required Bush to begin a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq this summer.

The Senate acted as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that violence in that country had fallen to its lowest levels in four years, the result of a year-and-a-half-long escalation in U.S. combat forces and improved fighting by Iraqi government troops.

Last week, there were about 400 attacks by snipers, suicide bombers, mortar operators and others against U.S., Iraqi and civilian targets across Iraq, according to data Petraeus presented to the committee.

That was down from about 1,400 in the comparable period a year ago and about 1,000 two years ago, according to the information Petraeus provided.

The improved security situation, Petraeus said, means U.S. forces will be reduced to about 125,000 by the end of July - down from roughly 160,000 earlier this spring - and he expects to recommend additional cuts by September.

"That's good news to most of us," responded Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who has favored legislation that would require Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

"Though, as always, tough fights and hard work lie ahead, I believe that the path that we are on will best help achieve the objective of an Iraq that is at peace with itself and its neighbors," said Petraeus.

He said, however, that U.S. forces would not be able to turn over full control of the country to Iraqi security forces by year's end, as had previously been hoped. Of Iraq's 18 provinces, nine are now under the control of Iraqi security forces. Petraeus said he expects that U.S. forces will turn over control of two other provinces to Iraqi forces this summer and to do the same for additional provinces this fall, "while still others will be undoubtably in the 2009 time frame."

Petraeus added that Iraqi provincial elections, that had been planned for October, will more likely be held in November.

According to the Pentagon, 4,082 U.S. forces have died and 30,112 have been wounded in Iraq since Bush launched the invasion there in March, 2003.

Petraeus, who has spent four years in Iraq on three separate tours of duty, has been nominated to become the commander of Central Command, or CENTCOM, the Tampa. Fla.-based command that oversees the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During his testimony, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., pressed Petraeus on his commitment to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, still on the lamb six and a half years after helping to organize the attacks on this country Sept. 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 Americans were killed.

"From the perspective of a senator from New York," she said, "it is deeply troubling that we have not captured or killed or essentially decapitated the capacity of al-Qaida."

Clinton urged more attention, in general, to the fighting in Afghanistan.

"It has been the forgotten front lines in the war against terrorism," she said. "We have allowed what was an initial success to, if not deteriorate, certainly stagnate."

Petraeus is expected to be confirmed for the top CENTCOM post.

"It will be an honor to have you as a resident of Florida," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla.

CENTCOM is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, near Tampa.