House panel OKs stepped up shipments of weapons to Jordan

The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday approved a bill to expedite the process of shipping advanced U.S. weapons to Jordan, a U.S. ally fighting the Islamic State.

In February, Secretary of State John Kerry and the Jordanian foreign minister signed a memorandum to increase U.S. assistance to Jordan from $660 million to $1 billion a year through 2017. The bill, introduced by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Ted Deutch, D-Fla., backs the increased aid and would treat Jordan as one of the nations that are accorded faster congressional review of arms deliveries.

"What Jordan really needs now is for us to expedite our arms transfers and defense articles to the kingdom," Ros-Lehtinen said.  "King Abdullah has stepped up to take a leading role in the fight, but he needs our help and has asked that we expedite some of these transfers so that Jordan has the tools necessary to not only repel IS but to take the fight to the terror group and destroy it."

The bill next goes before the full House.