"This is a critical component of our security apparatus," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).
With Republicans promising to oppose the bill, Democratic leaders turned to their rank and file for the 18 additional votes they needed to pass it.
Administration heavyweights -- including Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- phoned wavering House Democrats. In a midday private meeting of the Democratic caucus, House leaders told colleagues they needed 10 more converts to prevail. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) ratcheted up the pressure by calling on dissenters by name.
Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who had opposed the bill in May, decided to switch sides rather than risk delivering a high-profile defeat to Obama.
"I'm against the war," Miller said, but he thought the funding was necessary to "clean . . . up after the Bush administration."
Most of the money, $80 billion, will go to the Pentagon for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also includes $400 million for helping train Pakistani military personnel in counterinsurgency tactics.
More than $2 billion was included in the bill for eight additional Boeing C-17 cargo planes, despite efforts by the Obama administration to end production.
The $5 billion for the IMF will finance U.S. guarantees enabling loans to poor nations worth $108 billion.
The bill does not include the $80 million Obama requested to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. It also bars the administration from releasing detainees from the Cuban facility to freedom in the United States, at least until Sept. 30. It would, however, allow the administration to bring certain prisoners to U.S. jails for pretrial detention.
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janet.hook@latimes.com
