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The Appropriations Committee of the US House of Representative approved Thursday a US$368.7 billion defense bill for next fiscal year.
The measure, passed by voice vote, is 4.6 billion dollars more, or 1.3 percent, more than was approved for the current fiscal year.
It is 3 billion dollars less than President George W. Bush requested, but the House committee expected that Bush would seek additional tens of billions for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months.
This amount excludes the extra 62.4 billion dollars Congress approved for the Pentagon in April for the war with Iraq and counter terrorism efforts around the world.
The bill gave money Bush requested to develop a missile defense system, strengthen special operations forces, boost ship building and create a faster, more mobile ground fighting force.
Spending on the missile defense would be 8.9 billion dollars, 1.3 billion dollars more than the current year.
Special operations forces, which have become key weapons in the fight against terrorists, would get 46 billion dollars, 35 percent more than this year.
A total of 652 million dollars, 90 million dollars more than President Bush requested, would be used to develop Patriot PAC-3 missiles, which accidentally shot down two coalition aircraft during the Iraq war.
Shipbuilding would grow 2.4 billion dollars to 11.5 billion dollars, with funds included for a new Virginia-class attack submarine and three DDG-51 destroyers.
The Senate has not started moving its version of the bill.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2003)
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