By Nick Simeone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2012 – U.S. military
training for Iraq’s security forces will continue uninterrupted despite
Congress’s failure to approve money for it in a temporary spending bill now
funding government operations, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said
today.
When Congress approved a short-term
spending bill last month to keep the government running in the new fiscal year
that began yesterday, the measure left out funding for the roughly 200 U.S.
troops in Iraq who are training Iraqi forces.
Little told reporters during a Pentagon
news conference that Navy Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved U.S. Central Command’s request for $1.7 million
for continued training through the Combatant Commander Initiative Fund, which is
money already in the Pentagon budget.
“This is a temporary bridge while we
seek a longer-term way ahead in the [fiscal 2013] national defense
authorization, which we expect to be taken up by Congress later this year,” he
said.
Congress is in recess until after the
November elections. The financial bridge is a 90-day stopgap measure that
includes funding for counterterrorism operations as well as military training
and education, a Defense Department official said.
The last U.S. combat troops left Iraq last
year, but the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad continues to maintain an Office of
Security Cooperation under which the U.S. trains the Iraqi security forces in
capacity building and counterterrorism. The office also oversees military
sales.
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