MX win for Reagan
NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States House of Representatives yesterday refused to cut funding for the MX missile, handing President Ronald Reagan an important victory. The 217-208 vote came in an amendment to a SUS 246 billion defence oppropriations bill for 1984. Final passage of the bill is expected today. But in two set-backs for Mr Reagan, the Senate Appropriations Committee gave final approval to a SUS2SI billion defence bill that drops SUS22O million in secret funding for a Jordanian strike force and SUSI 24 million for production of chemical weapons.
The House vote on MX comes amid heightened protests against N.A.T.O.’s plans to station cruise and
Pershing 2 missiles in Europe, and Soviet threats to walk out of the Geneva arms control talks if the deployment takes place. Mr Reagan has argued that he needs the 10-war-head MX as a bargaining chip with the Soviet Union. Congress has debated the MX for a decade, reluctantly nudging it forward through research, development, and flight-testing stages. For the first time, the Democratic - controlled House yesterday agreed to spend SUS2.I billion to buy 21 MX missiles during the 1984 financial year. The Senate Appropriations Committee made its decision on the Jordanian strike force, a Reagan Administration plan to counter potential threats in the Gulf
area, in an in camera session which three Senate sources later verified.
The plan has greatly concerned Israel and American Jews because Jordan historically has been an enemy of Israel. The United States had not produced chemical weapons since 1969, and Mr Reagan has been trying to reinstate production funding. The House has voted to ban the funding, and that ban is included in the defence bill now under consideration.
The Administration managed to salvage the project several months ago in a narrow Senate vote, but the Appropriations Committee action, which deleted the funds by a 14-12 vote, makes it unlikely that Mr Reagan will prevail this year.
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Press, 3 November 1983, Page 10
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323MX win for Reagan Press, 3 November 1983, Page 10
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