Murtha, 12 colleagues back a murky $160 million request

Tucked into the voluminous congressional plan for U.S. military spending next year is $160 million intended to help Mexico's police buy U.S.-made first-responder radios. It is a major purchase that one radio manufacturer got rolling, 12 members of Congress formally requested and a powerful defense appropriations chairman championed, according to records and congressional staff members. But details of the plan to pump Pentagon money into Mexico's crime-fighting efforts are cloaked in vaguely worded language in the House defense bill.

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