Rice confronts skepticism on supplemental foreign aid

Sidestepping verbal bullets from both sides of the aisle about the administration's $5.6 billion request for foreign aid funding in the fiscal 2005 war supplemental, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Senate appropriators Thursday the money is "absolutely crucial to our national security."

In her first appearance before the panel, Rice firmly stood her ground against a barrage of doubts by Republicans and Democrats about the latitude the Bush administration is demanding in spending this money, as well as the wisdom of bypassing the normal appropriations process in granting it. As an emergency supplemental funding request, the money effectively would be removed from the fiscal 2005 budget and added to the budget deficit.

Rice enumerated the major programs and projects for which the money would be used, including $950 million for follow-up disaster relief for tsunami-stricken countries in Asia, $2 billion to shore up the government in Afghanistan and fight poppy production there, another $1.4 billion for Iraq -- including $658 million to build a fortified U.S. embassy in Baghdad, $100 million for Pakistani border security, $200 million to stabilize the government of Jordan, $400 million to help cash-strapped U.S. allies in Iraq that are straining to continue helping out there, $242 million for humanitarian assistance in Darfur -- plus $100 million more to augment the Sudan peace agreement, $780 million for several United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping missions, $60 million to bolster the new government in Ukraine, and $200 million to promote economic development and boost the reform effort of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas' government.

It was almost too much for some committee members to swallow. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., clapped a hand to his brow and exclaimed, "I, for one, don't know where all this money is going," and later called it "too big a slush fund to contemplate." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., complained about the administration's request for such wide leeway to spend the money without close scrutiny by Congress. "Flexibility is one thing," he said. "A slush fund is another."

Rice arched her back against such declarations and stoutly defended the department's need for both the amount of money and the latitude in spending it. On the aid to U.S. allies in Iraq -- which drew a lot of skepticism from the panel -- she cited Poland and Jordan as two examples of economically pinched countries whose help is important in the war on terrorism.

"Unforeseen, unanticipated events arise that need an immediate response," she said.

As for the prickly issue of building the embassy fortress in Iraq, Rice said the 750 or so Americans who will work there need the protection it would afford to do their jobs. The $200 million for Palestine would be spent in part for highly visible infrastructure projects to assure the disaffected people there that the Abbas government was making progress in meeting their critical needs for economic help and stability, she said.