The Senate was likely to pass last night an omnibus spending package that would include about $70 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Senate leadership aide.
A day earlier, the House narrowly passed a version that would have provided $31 billion for the war in Afghanistan and prohibitions against funding the Iraq war.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sought to amend the measure along the lines of what was recommended last month by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters yesterday he planned to propose a “sense of the Congress,” nonbinding resolution, “involving a timeline as a goal.
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) also planned to offer an amendment, but both his provision and Levin’s were expected to fail.
The State and Foreign Operations section of the bill that provides fiscal year 2008 operating funds for agencies across the federal government includes a provision to ban cluster bombs long sought by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
According to a joint statement, that provision mandates that no military funding can be used to sell or transfer cluster bombs unless they fail less than one percent of the time or if they will be used only against “clearly defined military targets.”