House Panel Proposes $200M To Aid Ukraine

WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations Committee is proposing a $200 million fund to provide weapons, training and other items to assist Ukraine in its standoff with Russian-backed forces.

In the first version of the panel's 2016 Pentagon spending bill, the committee states the monies should be allocated to provide "assistance, including training, equipment, lethal weapons of a defensive nature, logistics support, supplies and services, and sustainment to the military and national security forces of Ukraine."

Members of both political parties have said Washington should do more to help Ukraine defend itself against the Moscow-backed opposition forces.

The fund would be active until Sept. 30, 2016.

Meantime, the legislation also proposes $750 million for the Obama administration's controversial "train-and-equip" program in Iraq and Syria.

The fund would be for anti-Islamic State forces directly linked to the Iraqi government, but also for "other security forces," the bill states.

Specifically, the train-and-equip funds would be used for "assistance, including training, equipment, logistics support, supplies, and services, stipends, infrastructure repair, renovation, and sustainment to military and other security forces of or associated with the government of Iraq," the bill states.

That would include "Kurdish and tribal security forces or other local security forces, with a national security mission, to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant."

The bill does not explicitly, however, spell out if arms for the Kurdish and other local forces would have to flow through Baghdad — an arrangement that can frustrate the Kurds when the weapons do not show up, but also central government officials when hardware goes straight to the Kurdish forces.

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