WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- House Republican leaders have vowed to trim President Bush's $82 billion Iraq war funding request, removing items not of an emergency nature.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., whose panel will oversee the spending bill, told reporters Wednesday that while he supports the bill overall, some of the money requested should be funded through the regular annual appropriations process.
"About $4 billion will be carefully scrubbed," said Lewis. "If the work can be done under regular order in the '06 budget process, that's where we'll put it."
Although Lewis did not specify specific items, requests expected to be targeted by the GOP included a $658 million request for funds to build a new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and some of the foreign aid funding.
Congressional Democrats are targeting several items in the measure for removal, including $5 billion for reorganizing Army troops into smaller modular units.
