AP - AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Congress passed a $700 billion defense bill for 2018 on Thursday, and now it's waiting for President Donald Trump to sign. The bill allots about $634 billion for core Pentagon operations and nearly $66 billion for wartime missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The bill, however, is notional until Congress rolls back a 2011 law limiting national defense spending to $549 billion for 2018. Congress on Thursday sent President Donald Trump a sweeping defense policy bill authorizing a $700 billion budget for the military, including billions of dollars more for missile defense programs to counter the growing nuclear weapons threat from North Korea. The defense authorization bill for 2018 sailed through the Senate by voice vote. The House had approved the measure earlier this week. Lawmakers say the tens of billions of extra dollars are sorely needed to restock a U.S. military depleted by years of combat and a broken budgeting process that leave
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