, Washington – The US Congress approved on Wednesday a $401bn defence bill for the 2004 fiscal year, increasing military spending by about $8bn over current levels.
The Senate gave final approval to the measure in a vote of 95 to 3.
The bill increases military pay by slightly more than 4% and would fully fund several programmes in US President George W Bush's “war on terrorism.”
The legislation includes $1.3bn for chemical and biological defence programs and $9.1bn for ballistic missile defence in fiscal year 2004 — an increase of 17% over the current budget year.
The bill gives US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broad latitude to reshape the US Pentagon's civilian personnel system, giving supervisors greater flexibility to hire, fire and transfer workers.
The legislation also cleared the way for the research into previously-banned low-yield nuclear weapons, although it would continue to prohibit the development and production of such weapons.
The bill also sets aside $15m for a feasibility study into “bunker busters” – battlefield nuclear weapons capable of destroying hardened, underground targets.
The House approved the bill earlier this month, by a vote of 362 to 40.
Just three senators voted against the measure: Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, both Democrats, and Jim Jeffords of Vermont, an independent.
Jeffords said that while he found much to like in the bill, he opposed its relaxation of environmental regulations on the Pentagon.
He was particularly dismayed that the legislation exempts the Defence Department from provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
“The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has dramatically protected the diversity of our nation's natural environment,” Jeffords said on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.
“National security is more tightly tied to environmental security than many in the Pentagon would acknowledge.”
Modern, asymmetrical challenges
For his part, Byrd said he was opposed to spiralling defence spending at a time of swollen budget deficits. He said the bill fails to force the Pentagon to modernise US defence forces to deal with modern, asymmetrical challenges.
“The regular defence budget, not including the costs of the war on terrorism or the war in Iraq, has gone up by 31% since 2000,” Byrd said on the Senate floor.
“Instead of holding the feet of the Secretary of Defence to the fire so that he may decide which weapons systems are no longer needed for our 21st century defence strategy, Congress gives the Secretary vast new powers to hire and fire workers as he sees fit,” the West Virginia Democrat said.
The 2004 Defence Authorisation Bill, Byrd concluded, “transfers vast, unchecked powers to the Defence Department while avoiding any break with the business-as-usual approach to increasing defence spending.”
