Top-ranking Pentagon officials are defending the $58.6 billion overseas contingency operations request against claims from lawmakers that it has become a "slush fund." Critics have singled out the proposal's $5 billion request for a new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (CTPF) in Africa and $1 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative (ERI). Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James Winnefeld and DOD Comptroller Michael McCord told the House Armed Services Committee on July...
