Lawmakers Back NATO Expansion

WASHINGTON —  WASHINGTON -- Underscoring the importance of the U.S. military alliance with Europe, Congress sent President Bush a bill he wanted Friday that endorses an expansion of NATO and authorizes security assistance for seven nations that hope to join.

“The Cold War may be over, but the security and welfare of America and Europe are very closely linked,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Senate approved the bill Friday, 85 to 6. The House passed it in November, 372 to 46.

The vote occurred as Bush met with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek at the White House. Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia, will receive money from the legislation. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia will as well.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush and Drnovsek discussed the November NATO summit in Prague, where the alliance will decide whether to admit new members.

“This bill will help NATO extend the zone of stability eastward and southward on the continent so that sometime in the next decade we’ll be able to say ... that we have a Europe whole and free,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

The legislatures of the 19 NATO members would be needed to ratify inclusion of new members.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) criticized what she considered a failure to reevaluate NATO’s role given the new U.S.-Russia friendship, exemplified by a recent agreement to cut nuclear weapons on both sides.

“This is a defensive alliance to protect the democracies of Western Europe from the Communist threat of the East,” said Hutchison, who voted for the measure. “That threat has evaporated.”

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, who voted against the bill, said its rhetoric might make the seven nations think they have the U.S. vote for admission, and expanding NATO might hurt the alliance and impose more costs on the United States.