July 28: The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $59 billion to continue financing America’s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
The 308-to-114 vote, with strong Republican support, came after the leak of an archive of classified battlefield reports from Afghanistan that fuelled new debate over the course of the war and whether President Obama’s counter-insurgency strategy could work.
But Mr Obama and top military officials said on Tuesday that the disclosure of the documents should not force a rethinking of America’s commitment to the war. As Mr. Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden, “While I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardise individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.”
On a day of continuing political and military fallout over the leaked reports, Pentagon officials said that Bradley Manning, 22, an Army intelligence analyst arrested in June on charges of leaking a video of an American helicopter attack in Iraq and charged in July with downloading more than 1,50,000 classified diplomatic cables, was a “person of interest” in an Army criminal investigation to find who provided the battlefield reports to the group WikiLeaks.
Administration officials said passage of the spending bill, which now goes to Mr Obama for his signature, showed that the leak had not jeopardised Congressional support for the war and noted that the Senate passed the measure last week with no objection. Democratic leaders in the House said the Congress needed to act to provide the money troops overseas. “The President is taking a wise and balanced approach in Afghanistan, and it deserves our support,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat and majority leader. In the House vote, 148 Democrats and 160 Republicans backed the war spending, but 102 Democrats joined 12 Republicans in opposing the measure.
In 2009, 32 Democrats opposed a similar midyear spending bill.
Among those voting against the bill on Tuesday was Representative David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the panel responsible for the measure.
Some of the Democratic opposition stemmed from the decision by party leaders to strip from the bill money that had been included in the original House version to help address the weak economy at home, including funds to help preserve teachers’ jobs.