As the rest of the US government’s fiscal year 2006 budget was being finalized by Congress in November and December, the Department of Defense budget was mired in congressional fights over a host of provisions that had little or nothing to do with defense—oil drilling in the Arctic, a ban on torture, hurricane relief, and preparations for a bird-flu pandemic. And although Congress added $50 billion to the defense authorization for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration is expected to continue funding the conflicts through multi-billion-dollar supplemental requests outside the regular budget process.
When the final DOD budget passed, the Arctic drilling provision was gone, but the other provisions remained, turning the $453.5 billion defense authorization into something of a catchall bill that includes $29 billion for Hurricane Katrina relief, $2 billion to help low-income families heat their homes, and $3.8 billion in bird-flu money.
The Katrina...
