House Panel OKs More Defense Spending : Congress: Bill boosts military budget by $9.5 billion over Clinton’s request. GOP-backed measure enhances modernization, readiness.

Congressional Republicans won a first-round victory on key defense issues Wednesday as the House National Security Committee approved a defense authorization bill to substantially revamp President Clinton’s military budget.

The $267.3-billion measure, drafted over the objections of the panel’s Democratic minority, would boost defense spending by $9.5 billion over the Administration’s request and provide more money for military readiness, modernization of weapons and development of a national missile-defense system.

The vote was 48 to 3.

Working late into the evening, the panel’s GOP majority easily defeated a spate of Democratic attempts to strike key provisions, including controversial proposals to prohibit abortions at military installations overseas and force the services to discharge personnel found to be HIV-positive.

The panel’s action climaxes months of Republican criticism of the Administration’s defense program, first over GOP charges that the Pentagon had neglected military readiness and more recently over Clinton’s decision to cut funds for weapon modernization.

Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), the committee’s chairman, called the legislation “historic,” saying it marked the first time in the 20 years Congress has worked under the current budget process that lawmakers were increasing the President’s defense budget instead of cutting it.

But Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), ranking Democrat on the panel, blasted the bill as “flawed.” He charged that the committee had “reversed course” and was “pushing . . . potentially back toward global brinkmanship” instead of moving defense policy into the post-Cold War era.

Under pressure from the GOP, Clinton pledged in December to add $25 billion to the Pentagon budget over the next six years, but his plan would postpone most of the extra money until fiscal 1998 and beyond. Critics say that would still leave the services short of funds for modernization.

The Republicans also have been pressing the Administration to speed up development of a new missile system capable of defending the United States against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Administration has some research under way.

The National Security Committee’s legislation would add $6 billion to the services’ budgets for weapons modernization, including $2.4 billion to buy eight C-17 cargo planes and a Boeing 747 transport, and $425 million to buy six Air Force F-15 fighters and six F-16s.

It would also provide an extra $3 billion to help maintain readiness by protecting overall troop strength from cuts below current levels and authorizing 7,500 new personnel to help relieve strains in jobs such as early-warning radar operators, who are constantly deployed.

The bill would provide an added $2.3 billion--offset by cuts in other areas--for several other areas that Republicans have pinpointed, including housing and base facilities, maintenance of equipment and replenishment of munitions supplies.

It would also mandate sweeping reforms in the Pentagon’s procurement procedures, setting up pilot programs under which commercial firms would take over inventory and payroll tasks now carried out by the government. It would also cut about 30,000 Defense Department jobs.

The measure proposes to reduce requests for “supplemental” funds to pay for overseas contingency operations, such as those in Somalia and Haiti, by requiring the Pentagon to budget for some of them in advance and to pay for the rest by borrowing from its own business fund.

It would also slash $171 million from the Administration’s $371-billion bid for aid to the former Soviet Union under the so-called Nunn-Lugar program, named for sponsors Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and designed to help countries such as Russia and Ukraine dismantle their nuclear weapons arsenals.

There was no immediate indication how vigorously the Administration plans to fight the committee’s legislation, although most strategists expect it to clear the House floor largely intact. The provisions affecting abortions and discharge of personnel who are HIV-positive were not expected to pass in the Senate.

The Administration had hoped to cut defense spending next year to make room for projected domestic outlays. Clinton’s own budget proposed $257.8 billion in Pentagon spending for fiscal 1996, which begins Oct. 1, down from $271 billion this year.

The Nunn-Lugar program, in particular, is a favorite of Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who has vowed to oppose any efforts to cut it. The panel voted Wednesday to prohibit the use of funds to help China downsize its military--another of Perry’s proposals.

The committee also approved a proposal late Wednesday night to kill construction of a third Seawolf submarine, which the Administration had pushed through on grounds that it was needed to help preserve the defense industrial base in Connecticut, where the vessel is built.

Instead, it voted to provide $1.2 billion in substitute contracts to the Electric Boat Co. of Groton, Conn., which would have built the third Seawolf, for production of a prototype of a more-advanced submarine.

The panel also ratified a proposal, approved on Tuesday by one of its subcommittees, to provide $553 million to help keep production lines at Northrop Grumman Co. open for the manufacture of at least two more B-2 bombers beyond the 20 now being completed.

* VICTORY FOR REP. DORNAN: His anti-abortion, AIDS provisions are in defense bill. (Orange County Edition) B1