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Senate moves to restrict Iraq reconstruction funding

  • Story Highlights
  • Call to ban military funding of Iraqi reconstruction projects over $2 million
  • Sen. Carl Levin is chairman of powerful Senate Armed Services Committee
  • Levin: "Inexcusable" that U.S. pay for large-scale infrastructure
  • Levin: Iraq is exporting 2 million barrels of oil per day and running a budget surplus
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate Armed Services Committee moved Wednesday to ban U.S. military funding of Iraqi reconstruction projects costing more than $2 million.

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Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"American taxpayers are paying for too many things in Iraq that the Iraqis ought to pay for out of their surplus," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the committee.

The committee is also pressing for Baghdad to shoulder more of the cost of joint U.S.-Iraqi military operations.

Levin called it "unconscionable" and "inexcusable" that the United States pay for large-scale infrastructure projects in Iraq when, he said, that country is exporting 2 million barrels of oil per day and running a budget surplus.

He said it defied "common sense for a country that has that kind of wealth ... to be sending us the tab or for us to pay the tab for the infrastructure and some of the training costs that we're now paying for."

Levin was announcing his committee's proposed National Defense Authorization Bill for 2009, which outlines military spending. The bill was unanimously approved by Democrats and Republicans on the panel and now moves to the full Senate for a vote.

The broad-ranging legislation, Levin said, would also:

• Raise the pay of armed forces personnel by 3.9 percent across the board;

• Authorize 7,000 more soldiers in the Army, 5,000 more Marines, and 3,300 more full-time personnel for the National Guard and Army Reserve;

• Require that private security contractors not perform inherently governmental functions in the area of combat operations;

• Make sure that contractors do not set up foreign subsidiaries to avoid paying U.S. payroll taxes for their workers. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

All About IraqIraq WarU.S. Senate Committee on Armed ServicesCarl Levin

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