In late May, the Senate approved President Obama's request for nearly $40 billion in emergency war funding. Most of that was to pay for an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The House also approved that funding, more than two weeks ago. Still, even though the Pentagon says the money is urgently needed, it remains tied up in disputes between the chambers. Some lawmakers say that reflects a growing trend on Capitol Hill: Afghanistan fatigue.
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates had lunch behind closed doors the other day with Senate Republicans, he would not say what they had discussed when asked by reporters. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would. "The principal thing he emphasized, we already knew — which was that we need to get this supplemental appropriations bill for the troops passed," McConnell said.
McConnell is one of a dozen Senate Republicans who voted for that war funding. But more than two-thirds of his party colleagues voted no — a vote that would have been all but unheard of for GOP senators when George W. Bush was president.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128576442
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