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GOP votes to divert war funds to border

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

April 27, 2006

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans voted yesterday to divert $1.9 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan war funding to border security, sparking a floor fight between a riled-up Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and a GOP leader who accused her of spouting "poppycock."

The border measure, which came three weeks after a bitterly divided Senate failed to agree on comprehensive immigration reform, passed 59-39, largely along party lines.

It includes money for patrol boats, customs agents, aircraft and a new barrier near San Diego.

"We're standing up here and with a straight face saying that we're going to cut their body armor funds, we're going to cut the IED [improvised explosive device] research program, we're going to cut the death gratuity [for families of slain soldiers] so we can score political points and act like all of a sudden we've become fiscally responsible?" shouted an agitated Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted against the proposal.

Those comments spurred Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), author of the legislation, to rush to the floor. Gregg claimed the border money would ultimately come not from combat spending but from other Pentagon programs. He did not, however, specify which programs.

"To come down here and allege that these funds are going to come out of the needs of the people on the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan is pure poppycock," he said.

President George W. Bush has threatened to veto any defense supplemental appropriations bill that costs more than $94.5 billion. The Senate bill now exceeds that amount by about $14 billion, even though sponsors say the border funding will have no net effect on the budget.

The Senate vote represents a snub to Bush, whom many Republicans blame for their vulnerability in the upcoming midterm elections. The vote was also seen as an attempt to assuage conservatives who want beefed-up border security before agreeing to guest worker programs.

A Democrat-sponsored proposal adding border funding without tapping defense money failed 54-44.

At the same time, the House Homeland Security Committee voted 18-16 to reject a Democrat-sponsored amendment requiring every cargo container at large U.S. ports to be inspected thoroughly.

Instead, the committee approved a $2.4 billion port security overhaul that would result in the scanning of 98 percent of all containers for nuclear material by the end of 2007. But full inspections would only be performed on containers deemed to be at high risk for terrorist tampering.

"Today, House Republicans turned their backs on the lessons at the heart of the 9/11 tragedy," said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who sponsored the failed amendment.

"The time to act is now, not after al-Qaida sneaks a nuclear weapon into an American city by exploiting this glaring loophole."