WASHINGTON, Nov 13: The US Congress has approved a $698 million assistance package for Pakistan as part of the foreign appropriations bill for 2,006. The package was approved as presented by the Bush administration. It includes $300 million for military financing and $300 million in economic support fund.

President George W. Bush had announced a $3 billion, five-year assistance package for Pakistan in June 2003 after a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf at the Camp David presidential resort.

Under this arrangement, Pakistan is to receive $600 million a year, equally divided between military financing and economic support.

The House Appropriation Committee had initially reduced the allocation by $80 million but finally agreed with the administration and the Senate to restore the full amount.

The package also includes $40 million for narcotics control and law enforcement, $29 million for development assistance and $20 million for child survival and health projects.

Overall, the house has approved $20.9 billion in foreign aid, which includes assistance to US allies in the war against terror, such as Pakistan.

On a 358-39 vote, the house signed off on the spending package that provides $20.9 billion for foreign policy programmes and financial aid to poor nations for health, education, counter-narcotics and military initiatives.

Overall, the package provides $1 billion more for State Department programmes than the budget year that ended on Sept 30 but about $2 billion less than what President Bush wanted, reflecting budget constraints caused by the Iraq war, hurricane recovery and the soaring deficit.

A compromise between the house and Senate measures, the bill commits millions of dollars more to fight the spread of AIDS and other diseases in Africa and poor countries elsewhere. It is slated to get $2.8 billion - $629 million above last year’s total and $268 million more than what the president sought for this year.

However, lawmakers sliced the administration’s request for the Millennium Challenge programme, a hallmark in President Bush’s effort to spread democracy to underdeveloped countries by tying foreign aid to political, economic and human rights reforms. The programme has been slow to get off the ground.

The administration had wanted $3 billion for the effort, but lawmakers sliced that to $1.8 billion, citing budget pressures. Nevertheless, the Millennium Challenge programme will still get $282 million more than it did last year.

Lawmakers also drastically reduced the administration’s $459 million request for economic and security programmes for Iraq to $61 million. They say that more than $3.5 billion remains from the original $18.4 billion Iraq reconstruction package.