By Jen DiMascio

The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee early yesterday disclosed its plan to fund the federal government and the military’s war efforts, which includes $4.3 billion for the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

The bill written in the House walks a political fine line between responding to the potential for Defense Department layoffs of stateside civilian personnel and calls to end the war in Iraq.

House Democrats, who have pledged not to sign another “blank check” for the Iraq war, crafted a bill that adds $31 billion for operations in Afghanistan along with prohibitions on using the money for the war in Iraq, according to a statement from HAC Chairman Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.).

War funding in the omnibus spending bill also provides $2.34 billion for Army and Marine Corps procurement.

The bill is expected to face multiple changes when it arrives in the Senate before the end of the week, but senators yesterday were uncertain about exactly how that will play out.

The Senate’s Republican leadership is expected to offer an amendment adding about $40 billion for the war in Iraq–bringing the supplemental total to $70 billion, the figure previously recommended by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who said he is waiting for the House to move its version of the bill, said he has drafted Iraq-related language that would amend the Republican amendment to add war funding. Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he is looking for the “right formula” to obtain “more than 50 votes.

Stevens said he would oppose any effort to add conditions to funding for Iraq.

“We’re going to oppose any strings put on it,” Stevens told reporters yesterday. “I think it would be a real bad political mistake to do anything other than give them the money they need to do their job.”

But he added that he might be open to language referencing a goal for bringing troops home. “That would be a question of how it’s written,” Stevens said.

The House proposal answers a call for funding by the retired Army Gen. Montgomery Meigs, then the director of JIEDDO.

Meigs told reporters last month that without a war-funding bill, JIEDDO would run out of money for new equipment, home station training and other training requests.

“We aren’t going to be doing anything new, without additional funds, nothing. Just steady state, running the store, keep the lights, on keep the intel fusion operation going,” Meigs told reporters during a press briefing (Defense Daily, Nov. 20).

Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz took over as director of the JIEDDO Dec. 1.