A US House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday approved, without request from the Bush administration, 45 billion dollars for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee agreed in a closed session to include the emergency funding in the Pentagon's spending bill for fiscal 2006 starting on Oct. 1.

This came two weeks after the Congress Tuesday approved 82 billion dollars, in its fifth emergency spending package since theSept. 11, 2001 attacks, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House has not asked for funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in its budgets for the last three years. Instead, it requested the money in emergency bills.

Lawmakers have criticized the White House for not including thecost of the wars in the regular budgets and failing to give a realistic estimate.

The House and Senate are working on separate bills calling for 50 billion dollars in emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan for the first half of next year.

Bush requested 419 billion dollars for the Pentagon for 2006 inthe budget proposal submitted to the Congress in February. Including the emergency money, the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee's bill would provide 408.4 billion dollars.

Source: Xinhua