Senate Votes 74-25 to Halve Military Aid to El Salvador : Central America: The lawmakers risk a veto as they call for political and human rights reforms.

The Senate, in a sharp rebuke to the Bush Administration, voted overwhelmingly Friday to withhold more than $40 million in military assistance from El Salvador in an effort to press political and human rights reforms on its armed forces.

Defying a White House veto threat, senators voted 74 to 25 to impose complex restrictions on the $85 million in military aid earmarked for El Salvador next year, withholding half for now and tying future assistance to the conduct of both sides in El Salvador’s bloody civil war.

The provisions were part of a $15.5-billion foreign aid bill on which the Senate had hoped to complete action late Friday. It eventually postponed a decision until Monday. Reflecting congressional concern about the Persian Gulf crisis, the bill also would forgive $7 billion in Egyptian military debt and cut off aid to countries that fail to comply with the global embargo against Iraq. Egypt has sent troops to Saudi Arabia to support the U.S.-led deployment against Iraq.

The Egyptian debt plan survived a spirited challenge, with critics arguing that it sets a precedent the United States cannot afford at a time when lawmakers must make deep cuts in domestic spending to reduce the budget deficit by $500 billion over five years.

The provision, which the Administration believes is vital to the stability of a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, was retained when an attempt to strip it from the bill was defeated by a 55-42 margin.

It was El Salvador, however, that dominated debate and clouded the future of the bill, which President Bush has indicated he may veto unless the conditions it places on Salvadoran military aid are modified. The House adopted similar restrictions in the foreign aid bill it passed in June.

Reflecting congressional frustration with El Salvador’s failure to solve the brutal murders of six priests last year, the amendment sponsored by Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) caps military aid to El Salvador next year at $85 million.

Half of the $85 million would be withheld unless Bush determines that the country’s leftist rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front are unwilling to accept a U.N. cease-fire plan or to cooperate with U.N. mediation efforts, or if they launch another major military offensive. The full aid package would be restored in any of those circumstances.

If, however, the government of President Alfredo Cristiani refuses to accept the U.N. plan or fails to prosecute military officers believed responsible for the slaying of the priests, the aid would be cut off completely.

While the Administration lobbied intensively to soften the restrictions, several lawmakers said they do not believe that Bush will carry out his threat to veto the foreign aid bill. They cited Bush’s desire to win approval of the Egyptian debt provision and the White House’s recognition that, after a year of prevarication and procrastination by officials investigating the Jesuit case, congressional action was unavoidable.

The slaying of the Jesuits, followed by reports that Salvadoran military officials were tampering with evidence and delaying the investigation, mobilized a strong move in Congress to challenge the Administration’s policies on El Salvador. The prevailing mood was evident in the fact that 19 Republicans joined with Democrats to vote for the Dodd-Leahy cuts.

“Year after year, the Administration has said it will cut military aid to El Salvador if the (human rights) situation didn’t improve . . . and year after year, it doesn’t improve. It gets worse,” Leahy said in urging passage of the restrictions.

“At a time when we are cutting virtually every program important to people in the United States, we are sending money by the carload to El Salvador . . . and that’s not foreign policy, that’s crazy,” he added.

Recognizing that the effort to impose conditions on aid to El Salvador would succeed, the Administration tried to soften them by supporting a Republican amendment that would have restored the cuts unless both sides accepted a cease-fire within 60 days.

Sen. Robert W. Kasten (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, argued that the amendment would have given the Dodd-Leahy provisions “balance” by applying pressure to reach peace “equally to both sides.”

The Republican amendment was defeated 58 to 39, well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.