WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- A senior House Republican Wednesday welcomed bipartisan support in Congress for a new vehicle to protect U.S. troops from mines.
Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Subcomittee on Air and Land Forces, paid tribute to the work of the Democrat-controlled subcommittee and pledged his support for a mark to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 that recommends an increase of $4.1 billion in funding for the vehicle.
"This subcommittee has a long tradition of focusing on those issues that can most impact and help our brave men and women in uniform. And this mark meets that end by once again making force protection issues the top priority of this committee," Saxton said.
"The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle is the No. 1 priority for both the Army and the Marine Corps in theater," Saxton said. "As the chairman (Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii) said, this mark recommends an increase of $4.1 billion for MRAP in title XV and I commend him for his leadership in regards to taking this issue on."
The Democrat-controlled 110th Congress is already clashing directly with President George W. Bush on key national security issues such as whether a timetable should be imposed for a U.S. military pullout from Iraq. However, Saxton's comments revealed the real, constructive bipartisan cooperation on key areas of national security funding that continues at committee and subcommittee level on Capitol Hill.
