Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats on Tuesday questioned whether billions of dollars in aid for Iraq and Pakistan are being spent unnecessarily or are being diverted to purposes other than the ones Congress intended.

One member questioned why U.S. taxpayers will spend $3 billion this year alone for development and security in Iraq when Baghdad is spending only a fraction of its more than $40 billion in annual oil-export revenue on such programs. Another senator said there are credible reports that the United States is giving Pakistan nearly $1 billion a year to fight terrorism without getting the proper receipts to indicate the money is being used for that purpose — and not for weapons designed to fight India.

The twin charges exemplify how, after more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Democrats are ratcheting up attacks on the way U.S. funds are spent on those conflicts.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Carl Levin , D-Mich., the committee’s chairman, said Iraq made $41 billion exporting oil last year and is expected to make $56 billion in 2008. However, he said, Iraq has used only a fraction of that money for its own security and development needs.

Since 2002, Iraq has spent $51 billion on security and development, compared to $48 billion spent by the United States in those years on the same kind of programs, said Adm. William Fallon, the commander of U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East and southwest Asia. Fallon said Iraq intends to step up its spending.

But Fallon said Iraq lacks the administrative ability to spend so much money effectively on its own development.

On a separate but similar issue, Sen. Claire McCaskill , D-Mo., complained that the United States is spending $80 million a month to pay the Pakistani government for support it ostensibly provides in hunting down terrorists in the tribal regions of that country, often without adequate documentation that Pakistan spent the money in that way. McCaskill said many officials say some of the money was spent developing weapons that could be used against India, not in hunting al Qaeda.

Fallon said the program is receiving more monitoring now than in the past.

“I can tell you we are paying a lot of attention to it now,” he said.