Kerry Introduces Legislation that Counters House Panel’s Aid Cuts to Lebanon, Other Countries
The U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, introduced a bill to counter a Republican-crafted legislation approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to bar defense aid to Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Yemen if groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and Hamas are part of the government.
Kerry said the country faces "tremendous foreign policy and national security challenges worldwide, from helping countries manage peaceful, democratic transitions in the Middle East, to preventing violence, conflict, and terrorism from engulfing key partners, and to leading humanitarian responses to forestall drought, famine and natural disasters."
He said a robust State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development are critical to meeting those challenges.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also warned Congress that she will fight to block the Republican push to restrict aid for Israel’s Arab neighbors and Pakistan.
Clinton voiced "profound concern" about the bill approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She told its chair, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, that she would ask President Barack Obama to veto the measure if it came to his desk.
The restrictions in the bill "would be debilitating to my efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and diplomacy, and to use foreign assistance strategically to that end," Clinton wrote Ros-Lehtinen in a letter Tuesday.
"Should this bill be presented to the president, I will recommend personally that he veto the bill."
But even without a veto, it remains unclear if the bill will survive. Obama and Clinton's Democratic Party retains control of the Senate after losing the House of Representatives in elections last year.(AP-AFP-Naharnet)
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