Last Minute Missile Defense Spat

An otherwise settled Democratic defense authorization bill for next fiscal year was sailing smoothly to completion around lunchtime today on the House floor when the conservative ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee surprised almost everyone with an amendment to integrate the U.S. ballistic missile defense system with Israel. The provision, which would authorize $205 million in to-be-determined redirected BMDS funds, also would boost Arrow missile coproduction and move the countries to work on short-range ballistic missile defense together.

Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), HASC chairman, and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), strategic forces subcommittee chair, reluctantly accepted the motion, which passed the House 394 to 30 - but not without lambasting the ambush-like nature of the proposal. 

The legislative-comity faux pas? Skelton and Tauscher didn't get to see the proposal until five minutes before it hit the whole House, and in fact, it's based on Republican proposals that failed to make it through the House Rules Committee, a prefloor filter run by the majority party in that chamber.

The amendment, pitched by Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who leads the HASC minority side, would allocate $25 million more for Arrow missile coproduction and for integration between the allies, $45 million for a U.S. and Israel short-range missile system and $135 million for buying a THAAD fire unit for Israel.

The procedural anomaly flies in the face of the usual bipartisanship that the HASC has enjoyed for years, if not decades, and could strain relations further as Democrats and Republicans marshal forces ahead of 2008 presidential elections.

--Michael Bruno

Comments

[Peter]

"an amendment to integrate the U.S. ballistic missile defense system with Israel"

while it is difficult to figure out what the above means, the result seems to be to give Israel more US money to improve its missile defenses.

and it is presidential politics

[Michael Bruno]

That's a great question, Peter - and one that we all hope Congress mulls over before enacting it into law. Major policy decisions ought to be masticated and digested before the Soviet Union is outlawed and bombers fly...