House OKs $638 billion defense bill

The House bill rejects President Barack Obama’s latest plea to shutter the military-run prison in Cuba, and it bars the administration from transferring its terror suspects to the United States or to a foreign country such as Yemen. The Senate bill provides the Defense Department with additional flexibility to transfer detainees to the U.S. and other countries, with the objective of closing the detention facility.

MISSILE DEFENSE

The House bill provides $140 million as a down payment for a new missile defense site on the East Coast to expand the country’s defenses from a potential ballistic missile attack by Iran. The Senate bill does not mandate an East Coast site, opting instead to require the Pentagon to deploy additional radars to improve the capabilities of existing missile defense sites on the West Coast.

HIGHER PAY

The House bill provides U.S. troops with a 1.8 percent annual pay raise. The Senate bill authorizes a 1 percent increase in pay for the troops, which is the amount the Defense Department requested.

Associated Press

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a sweeping, $638 billion defense bill on Friday that would block President Barack Obama from closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and limit his efforts to reduce nuclear weapons.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted 315-108 for the legislation.

The House bill must be reconciled with a Senate version before heading to the president’s desk. The Senate measure, expected to be considered later this year, costs $13 billion less than the House bill — a budgetary difference that also will have to be resolved.

The defense policy bill authorizes money for aircraft, weapons, ships, personnel and the war in Afghanistan in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 while blocking the Pentagon from closing domestic bases.

The measure bars the Pentagon or the National Nuclear Security Agency from spending any money to implement the new START treaty with Russia that the Senate ratified in December 2010 until the defense secretary provides certain information on reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to Congress.

Despite last-minute lobbying by Obama counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, the House soundly rejected Obama’s repeated pleas to shutter Guantanamo. In recent weeks, the president implored Congress to close the facility, citing its prohibitive costs and its role as a recruiting tool for extremists.

A hunger strike by more than 100 of the 166 prisoners protesting their conditions and indefinite confinement has prompted the fresh calls for closure. Obama is pushing to transfer approved detainees — there are 86 — to their home countries and lift a ban on transfers to Yemen. Fifty-six of the 86 are from Yemen.

The House voted down an amendment to close the naval detention center by Dec. 31, 2014, on a 249-174 vote. It also backed an amendment to stop the president from transferring any detainees to Yemen. That vote was 236-188.

The restrictions in the House bill put it at odds with the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s bill gives the Defense Department additional flexibility to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. and other countries, with the objective of closing the detention facility there.

But, in a move that reflects deep divisions in Congress over Guantanamo’s future, the committee did not hold votes on the provision in the bill, opting instead to have that debate when the legislation moves to the Senate floor.

In its current form, the Senate committee’s legislation would permit transfer of terror suspects to the U.S. if the Pentagon determines that doing so is in the interests of national security and that any public safety issues have been addressed, the committee said Friday in a statement detailing the bill’s major provisions.

Detainees could be moved to foreign countries if they are determined to no longer be a threat to U.S. security, the transfers are pursuant to court orders, or the individuals have been tried and acquitted, or have been convicted and completed their sentences.

Transfers to third countries also could occur if the Pentagon determines the move supports U.S. national security interests and steps have been taken “to substantially mitigate the risk of the detainee re-engaging in terrorist activities,” the committee said.

The bill also imposes new punishments on members of the armed services found guilty of rape or sexual assault as outrage over the crisis in the military has galvanized Congress.

Obama backs the measures, which would require a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for a member of the armed services convicted of rape or sexual assault in a military court. The bill also would strip military commanders of the power to overturn convictions in rape and sexual assault cases.