The Senate’s newly drafted defense authorization bill would authorize $612.5 billion in fiscal 2009, including $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Armed Services Committee said in a statement Thursday.

The measure, which the panel approved Wednesday evening, would authorize a 3.9 percent pay raise for U.S. military personnel, a half percentage point more than President Bush sought in his budget request. It does not include $1.2 billion in proposed increases in health care deductibles, copayments and fees in the military’s Tricare network.

Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he hopes the Senate will take up the bill by the end of May.

The bill does not contain language to require the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. When the measure comes to the floor, Levin said he and Jack Reed, D-R.I., may propose a modified version of their longstanding amendment on troop withdrawals. It remains to be seen to whether the senators’ provision would be advisory or mandatory. Levin said the amendment would be offered when the Senate takes up a war supplemental spending measure in the days ahead.

The authorization bill does include a ban on U.S. funding for most reconstruction projects in Iraq, with an exception for rebuilding programs that cost less than $2 million. Levin said it was one of the few Iraq provisions that moved easily through the committee.

“There is no consensus about policy, but our committee unanimously adopted this decision,” Levin said.

John W. Warner of Virginia, the panel’s senior Republican, called it a “very positive step forward.”

The bill would require the United States to negotiate cost-sharing agreements with Iraq for combined military operations and stipulate that Iraq must take steps to ensure that it pays for the training, equipping, and sustaining of the Iraqi Security Forces and the costs associated with the Sons of Iraq, the Sunni tribesmen who are now aiding U.S. forces.

The provisions seeking to shift more of the costs of the war and reconstruction to Iraq reflect the growing impatience of lawmakers of both parties with the mounting burden on the U.S. taxpayer.

For weapons systems, the bill would authorize $411 million less than the administration requested for missile defense programs, aides said. But the committee backed away from severe cuts to the Airborne Laser program, which would develop a missile-intercepting laser mounted on 747 aircraft, recommending just $45 million less than the administration’s roughly $400 million request.

The committee-approved bill would set several conditions for spending $712 million on a proposed European missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic, including parliamentary approval in those countries before deployment and U.S. certification of the system’s effectiveness before certain missile parts are bought.

It would authorize full funding in fiscal 2009 for the Army’s next generation of equipment, the Future Combat System and would support in full the Navy’s shipbuilding plan.

“The policies and funding decisions in this bill are designed to reduce our nation’s strategic risk by helping to restore the readiness of the military services to conduct the full range of their assigned missions as soon as possible,” Levin said in a statement.

John McCain of Arizona, the committee’s ranking member and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also lauded the bill in a statement.

“This is a critical time in our nation’s history and the committee has, once again, demonstrated its strong bipartisan support for our troops and their mission to protect our great nation,” he said.

First posted May 1, 2008 11:05 a.m.