Congress seeks to kill Obama's counterterrorism fund
The Senate spending panel approved legislation to defund the president's signature proposal.
WASHINGTON — Senate appropriators passed a defense spending bill June 11 that would kill President Barack Obama's signature counterterrorism training program amid criticism that it's too broad to do any good.
The Defense Department is seeking $2.1 billion for the so-called Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, which aims to facilitate partnerships and "provide the flexibility to respond to a range of terrorist threats and crisis response scenarios." Lawmakers, however, balked at funding what they consider an ill-defined program that they would have trouble properly overseeing.
"The Committee remains supportive of increased engagement with partner nations to address terrorist threats in the Middle East and Africa," the Senate Appropriations Committee said in its draft report accompanying the legislation. "However, the Committee is concerned about the Department's ability to wisely execute $2,900,000,000 of CTPF funds in fiscal years 2015 through 2017 in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars provided for other capacity building programs."
Instead, the spending bill would reduce the funding request by $1.1 billion and transfer the remaining $1 billion to another, department-wide account. The Senate floor could vote on the bill as early as next week.
