House Approves a Modified GOP Defense Bill

The House approved Republican-sponsored legislation Thursday designed to prod the Clinton Administration to change course on several defense and foreign policies, but only after Democrats succeeded in weakening some of its most controversial provisions.

The legislation, part of the House GOP’s “contract with America,” had been intended to restrict President Clinton’s ability to deploy American troops on U.N. peacekeeping missions, accelerate the deployment of an antiballistic missile defense system and speed up the expansion of NATO.

But Democrats mounted a vigorous counteroffensive. They pushed through amendments that blunted the missile-defense and North Atlantic Treaty Organization provisions and forced Republicans to withdraw a proposal requiring the President to seek Congress’ approval before sending troops on U.N. missions.

Passage ultimately came on a largely party-line vote of 241 to 181--a substantial enough margin but still about 50 votes short of what the Republicans would need to override a veto that Clinton has threatened. Four Republicans and 18 Democrats crossed party lines.

Despite the Democrats’ changes, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Republicans had achieved their major goal in passing the bill--putting the Administration on notice that it would have to “rethink the sort of feckless multilateralism” that he said had characterized its foreign policy.

“We’re trying to send a pretty clear signal,” Gingrich said at a ceremony intended to mark passage of yet another provision in the 10-point contract with America, on which House Republicans ran in the November election.

The measure the House passed included major provisions that:

* Require the Administration to deduct the extra cost of deploying U.S. troops on U.N. peacekeeping missions from the $1-billion annual contribution that Washington makes to the organization’s peacekeeping fund. The United States now bears such extra costs.

* Forbid placing American troops under foreign command in U.N. peacekeeping operations unless the President certifies that the arrangement is needed for national security. Pentagon officials said the provision is unnecessary because U.S. troops are always under American command.

* Cut the American share of U.N. peacekeeping costs to 25% of the total, down from 31.7% now, in line with a change made by Congress last year. But the proposal allows Clinton to exceed the limit by declaring the move is necessary for national security.

* Call on the Administration to develop options for deploying a nationwide antiballistic missile defense system as soon as practical but only after the system has been fully tested and after the Pentagon has paid to improve overall readiness levels in the armed services.

* Call on the Administration to speed the entry of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic into NATO but without the specific fast-track timetable that Republicans earlier had sought to impose.

The measure would also set up an independent commission to review current defense policies. And it urges Congress to reinstate the budgetary fire walls that once prevented lawmakers from raiding the defense budget to finance domestic spending.

The legislation now goes to the Senate to an uncertain future.

Although Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has endorsed several provisions of the bill, the Senate has no comparable legislation in draft form.

The House fight over the bill this week marked deep-seated divisions between the two parties on an array of defense and foreign-policy issues, both over the pace of new weapons development and on the use of American forces in U.N. peacekeeping missions.

Republicans have been arguing for months that Clinton’s continued deployment of American troops in places such as Somalia, Haiti and even Rwanda has detracted from military preparedness and siphoned off money from defense.

They have also been pressing Clinton to halt the decline in defense spending and to speed deployment of a broad-scale antiballistic missile system.

The Pentagon has said that it is developing such a system but that it first wants to improve battlefield missile defenses.

To the surprise of some critics, the Administration mounted an unusually tough fight against the legislation, with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Defense Secretary William J. Perry warning that it would cripple U.N. peacekeeping efforts and hurt national defense.

On Wednesday, Clinton suggested that he will veto the legislation, saying the restrictions proposed by the measure would impinge on his constitutional authority and were “simply unacceptable.”

The national security bill included some of the recommendations that were part of legislation co-sponsored last year by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove). His bill restricted the placement of U.S. troops under foreign command, such as U.N. peacekeeping operations.

“The obscure command structure of the United Nations and the tendency of the Clinton Administration to send U.S. troops on so-called peacekeeping operations with no clear military objectives . . . places American troops in harm’s way,” Dornan said in a statement after the vote. Dornan chairs the House National Security subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, also praised the bill because it “sets defense spending priorities and restores the vital elements of our defenses needed to maintain our credibility around the world.”

Defense spending, he said, should be used to improve military readiness, “not sending troops all over the world acting as international peacekeepers.”

“Restoring our defenses now prevents our military from becoming another hollow force of the 1970s,” Packard added.

The Administration declined to say late Thursday whether the veto threat remained intact now that the bill has been diluted.

Times staff writer Gebe Martinez contributed to this report.