WASHINGTON (Hispanic News) April 25, 2005
- Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl's voted Thursday against adding money for armored
Humvees to an $81.3 billion emergency supplemental spending measure for
military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senate Amendment 520 - introduced by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. - was adopted
61-39. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was among senators who supported the
additional $213 million in fiscal 2005 for "Up-Armored High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles."
Bayh had said the money was needed because the vehicles protect troops from
roadside bombs and other threats.
Arizona's junior GOP senator heads into a re-election year in 2006 and
contradicts early quote in December in a Tucson newspaper as saying that the
body and vehicle armor that U.S. troops use today, made by Simula Inc.,
located in Arizona, "have driven mortality rates down."
Asked about the senator's vote, Kyl spokesman Scot Montrey on Friday had no
immediate comment.
