| (Article information
from the Associated Press)
The Senate disregarded an intense lobbying campaign by the
White House and decided that Iraq eventually should have to
repay half the $20.3 billion President Bush wants to rebuild
the country.
The House, however, narrowly rejected a move to specify that
half the reconstruction money be in the form of loans, complicating
negotiations between the two chambers on the $87 billion package
to finance American military and aid efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both the Senate and House were aiming to finish work on the
bills yesterday, and, despite strong Democratic criticism
of the president's postwar policies in Iraq, both measures
were expected to pass by wide margins.
The president and his top aides, including Vice President
Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, pressed lawmakers
to make all reconstruction money grants rather than loans.
They argued that loans would worsen Iraq's foreign debt and
undermine efforts to get other nations to forgive their outstanding
loans to Iraq.
But the administration was confronted by lawmakers who said
constituents were disturbed by the idea that the United States,
while racking up record federal deficits, was giving billions
in aid to a nation sitting on the second largest oil reserves
in the world.
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said the vote sent a
strong message to the Bush administration that "it must
do more to ensure that America's troops and taxpayers don't
have to go on shouldering this costly burden virtually alone."
In the House, Democrats David Obey of Wisconsin and Tom Lantos
of California sought to convert half the $18.6 billion in
the House bill for reconstruction, but lost, 226-200.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., promised to work
hard to remove the loan provision when House and Senate negotiators
meet, probably next week, to decide on the final version they
will send to the president.
The goal is to get the bill on the president's desk before
next week's conference of donor nations in Madrid, Spain.
There was little controversy over the bulk of the emergency
spending package, $66 billion to sustain U.S. military operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Debate centered on the money to restore
economic and political stability in Iraq, which in the House
bill included $793 million for health care programs, $2.8
billion for potable drinking water, $217 million for border
security, $5.65 billion for electricity generation and $2.1
billion to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.
Under the Senate loan amendment, the $10 billion in loans
would be transformed into a grant if other countries agreed
to forgive at least 90 percent of the debt they were owed
by Iraq. That debt is usually estimated at between $90 billion
and $127 billion.
The loan proposal was the most significant change lawmakers
have made in the mammoth spending package that the president
proposed Sept. 7.
Cheney called senators during the day hoping to block the
loan plan, congressional aides said. And two Republican senators
- Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Kay Bailey Hutchison of
Texas - who initially had said they supported loans switched
Thursday and said they had been persuaded to oppose them.
The White House budget office released a statement saying
the administration strongly opposed loans. But the letter
omitted any mention of a veto threat, which the office sometimes
includes to send a strong message of opposition. |
