Committee (HASC) minority, would redirect $205 million in BMDS funds, as determined by Pentagon leaders, for the Israeli effort.

In turn, it would allocate $25 million more for Arrow missile co-production and integration between the allies, $45 million for a U.S./Israeli short-range missile system and $135 million to buy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) fire unit for Israel, Hunter told the House from the floor.

Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), HASC chairman, and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), strategic forces subcommittee chair, reluctantly accepted the motion - which then passed the House 394 to 30 - but not without lambasting Hunter and others for being ambushed by their proposal.

Skelton and Tauscher didn't get to see the proposal until five minutes before it hit the whole House. It was based on Republican proposals that failed to make it through the House Rules Committee, a pre-floor filter for the majority party in that chamber. House deliberations the day before were repeatedly stymied by upset Republicans whose proposals were sidelined by Rules (DAILY, May 17).

The procedural anomaly Hunter used also flies in the face of the usual bipartisanship he and Skelton have enjoyed for years, and could strain relations further as Democrats and Republicans marshal forces ahead of the 2008 presidential election.

Republicans cited firebrand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in pitching the measure to the House. "If you could vote against a second genocide of the people of Israel, would you?" said co-sponsor Rep. Mark Kirk (Ill.).

But Democrats railed against citing the Holocaust for such a proposition and suggested the amendment was more for domestic political consumption.

Otherwise, Skelton and Tauscher managed to maintain their HASC mark-up and its contentious missile defense authorization, leading the House to reject a left-wing proposal to slice another $1 billion from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), as well as a right-wing effort to restore $764 million in requested MDA funds.

Democratic Reps. John Tierney (Mass.) and Rush Holt (N.J.) proposed the further reductions, which would have killed both of the MDA's boost-phase interceptor programs, MDA's top-priority Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Alaskan ground-based midcourse interceptor base and the Bush administration's proposal for another site in Poland. They failed by a vote of 229-127.

But the House also rebuffed missile defense advocate Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), as the HASC did the week before, in trying to reverse Tauscher's cut to MDA's topline. Franks enlisted Republican Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) and Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) to propose Pentagon leaders find $764 million in non-missile defense DOD procurement or research funds and redirect them toward MDA. They lost 226-199.

The House later passed the underlying HASC bill, which remained largely unchanged from the committee version, by 397-27. The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to mark up its version May 22-23.