Senators vote to shift some Iraq funds

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase security on the nation’s borders and give the Coast Guard new boats and helicopters.

Senators also ignored a White House veto threat and overwhelmingly voted against cutting a $106.5 billion measure funding Iraq, further hurricane relief for the Gulf Coast and a slew of add-ons opposed by fiscal conservatives.

And in a nail-biting 49-48 vote that tested lawmakers’ loyalties, senators voted with Mississippi’s powerful GOP delegation to keep alive a controversial $700 million project to relocate a rail line along the Mississippi coast so the state can build a new east-west highway.

The project has become a cause celebre among conservative activists, who say it’s a boondoggle. Lawmakers were clearly torn between voting for it or offending Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

“I just don’t think it’s an emergency and I don’t think taxpayers ought to be paying for it,” said Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who led the effort to kill the project. Generally speaking, more senior senators supported Cochran, regardless of party loyalties.

On border security, the Senate voted 59-39 for a plan to cut Bush’s Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego.

While the border security funds had broad support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war spending would harm troops in Iraq. The cuts, sought by Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would trim Bush’s request for the war by almost 3 percent, but he doesn’t specify how.

Republicans Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho and Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington voted for Gregg’s amendment.

An amendment by Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to add the border security funds but not tap the Pentagon for them failed by a 54-44 vote.

The Senate voted by a veto-proof 72-26 margin to kill an attempt by conservatives to cut the overall bill back to Bush’s request – just a day after the White House issued a toughly worded promise to veto the $106.5 billion bill unless it is cut back to below $95 billion.

But 35 Senate Republicans signed a letter promising to sustain a veto in the unlikely event it would come to that, increasing pressure on headstrong appropriators to hew to Bush’s demands during House-Senate talks next month.