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

The House voted to include the emergency funding in the Pentagon's spending bill of 409 billion dollars for fiscal 2006 starting on Oct. 1. Republican lawmakers rebuffed an effort by Democrats to require President George W. Bush to submit a report to Congress on how he will judge when US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.

The "bridge fund" came weeks after the Congress approved 82 billion dollars in its fifth emergency spending package since the Sept. 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. The "bridge fund" would bring costs of the US military operations to more than 300 billion dollars.

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

Source: Xinhua