WASHINGTON (AP) Apr. 30, 2015 — The House Armed Services Committee passed a nearly $612 billion defense policy bill early Thursday that seeks to change military retirement benefits and challenges President Barack Obama’s policies on Guantanamo Bay, Ukraine and Iraq.
The vote was 60 to 2. The measure will be taken up by the full House next month.
Aside from taking breaks to handle other House business and attend the Japanese prime minister’s address to a joint meeting of Congress, the committee worked amendment-by-amendment for more than 18 hours. The panel of sleepy-eyed lawmakers adjourned their marathon session at 4:39 a.m.
On Guantanamo, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, tried but failed to amend the authorization to remove restrictions on transferring detainees out of the military prison for terror suspects in Cuba.
The measure that passed reauthorizes a ban on transferring detainees to the United States or building detention facilities in the United States to hold them.
On Ukraine, the committee approved provisions to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine forces fighting Russian-backed separatists. It authorizes $200 million to do more to provide Ukraine with military training and assistance to defend itself from Russian aggression. Despite bipartisan demands in Congress to arm Ukraine’s forces to defend itself, Obama has so far refrained to do so.
In another move opposed by Obama as well as by an influential Shiite cleric, the committee approved giving 25 percent of $715 million to train and equip the Iraqi army directly to Sunni and Kurdish fighters.
The bill authorizes $515 billion in spending for national defense and another $89.2 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations for a total of $604.2 billion. Another $7.7 billion is mandatory defense spending that doesn’t get authorized by Congress. That means the bill would provide the entire $611.9 billion desired by the president.

Other highlights:
STRIKE FIGHTERS: Despite a challenge from Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., the panel rejected a plan to take money from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and give it to the National Guard and Reserve. The bill authorizes six additional F-35Bs for the Marines and 12 more F-18s for the Navy.
EAST COAST MISSILE DEFENSE: Even though the Pentagon doesn’t think it’s needed, the committee set aside $30 million for planning, designing and constructing what would be a multibillion-dollar missile battery on the East Coast. There already are ones in California and Alaska to counter the threat of missiles that might be launched at the U.S. from North Korea or Iran.
A-10: The Air Force urged Congress not to stand in the way of retiring the A-10 attack jet, which provides close air support for troops, but the committee voted to keep it alive for another year.
The 2016 National Defense Authorization Act is the legislation that authorizes the budget authority of the Defense Department and the national security programs of the Energy Department.