Core Pentagon spending would grow by $17 billion under the new GOP package. GOP conditions Pakistan aid

House Republicans unveiled a nearly $650 billion defense package Tuesday that would fully back President Barack Obama’s war funding requests but attach new conditions demanding a better explanation of counter-insurgency aid promised to Pakistan.

Core Pentagon spending would grow by $17 billion to $530 billion and an estimated $119 billion is provided for military operations overseas, chiefly in the Afghanistan and Pakistan theater.


Included is $1.1 billion in continued counter-insurgency assistance for the Islamabad government, but the House Appropriations Committee would add new conditions forcing a fuller airing of concerns regarding that partnership in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan last month.

Legislative language withholds three-quarters of the funds until the Defense and State Department come up with a report to Congress on how the money is being used and what metrics are being used to measure progress by Pakistan in rooting out terrorist and Taliban elements inside its borders.

The requested report would include a discussion of “United States strategic objectives in Pakistan” and a “listing of the terrorist or extremist organizations in Pakistan opposing United States goals in the region and against which the United States encourages Pakistan to take action.”

The administration would be asked to spell out “the gaps in capabilities of Pakistani security units that hampers the ability of the Government of Pakistan to take action against the organizations” and what standards will be used to measure progress by the Pakistan in “combating the organizations listed in clause.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has spoken out strongly for continued U.S. involvement with Pakistan, but the fact that bin Laden was found living in a military town has aroused immense suspicion in Congress. Some Taliban forces and certainly their top leaders have long enjoyed sanctuary inside Pakistan’s borders, and the language now is clearly designed to ratchet up the pressure on Islamabad to do more.