Bush to seek $100 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan this year

[Neo]

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Saturday, February 03, 2007

Bush to seek $100 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan this year

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration will ask for another $100 billion for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and seek $145 billion for 2008, a senior administration official said Friday.

The requests Monday, to accompany President George W Bush’s budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct 1, would bring the total appropriations for 2007 to about $170 billion, with a slight decline the following year.

The additional request for the current year includes $93.4 billion for the Defense Department - on top of $70 billion approved by Congress in September - and is below requests sent by the Pentagon to the White House budget office.

Bowing to pressure from Congress, the administration will also break down the $145 billion request for next year into detailed form. For 2009, the White House assumes spending will be down to $50 billion, with no funding planned beyond then in hopes the war in Iraq will have wound down.

Bush has said his five-year plan will bring a balanced budget by 2012, but the claim has met with some scepticism from Democrats since the White House has declined to forecast long-term war costs.

“If we’re successful carrying out the president’s current policy, we would hope that we’d begin to have less of a financial commitment even in this fiscal year,� said the senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget will not be unveiled until Monday. “This is our best guess.�

The spiralling war spending - up from $120 billion approved by Congress for 2006 - is largely to replace equipment destroyed in combat or worn out in harsh conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Iraq requests are certain to face scrutiny by the Democratic-controlled Congress, which is debating whether to try to block Bush’s request to increase troop levels in Iraq to quell the burgeoning violence in Baghdad.

War critics also say the Pentagon is using war funding requests to modernize the armed services with weaponry - such as the next-generation Joint Strike Fighters or the controversial V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft - unlikely to see action in Iraq or Afghanistan.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-2-2007_pg7_40

[Neo]

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Bush’s Iraq ‘surge’ could swell to 48,000 US troops

WASHINGTON: President George W Bush’s plan to add 21,500 troops in Iraq could actually result in an increased US military force in Iraq of up to 48,000 troops, a congressional report concluded on Thursday. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that when non-combat support troops were taken into account, the actual number of additional troops deployed in Iraq could reach between 35,000 and 48,000.

The CBO said the administration’s “surge� in troops could cost between 20 billion to 27 billion dollars over the first 12 months of the deployment. Under Bush’s plan, five army combat brigades and two marine battalions totalling more than 21,500 troops will be added to the 138,000-strong US force in Iraq and put mainly in Baghdad in an attempt to “break the cycle of sectarian violence there�. No additional support units have been ordered deployed as yet as part of the build-up. “I would say that the estimate provided by the CBO in their worst case scenario is far above what is needed,� said a senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified.

[Neo]

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February 17, 2007
US House rejects Bush plan for Iraq

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Feb 16: The US House of Representatives on Friday rejected President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and instead urged him to reconsider his strategy.

As many as 246 congressmen voted for a resolution opposing a surge in US troops while 182 voted against it.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate moved to send a unified congressional message against President Bush’s Iraq strategy, announcing plans to hold an anti-surge votes in the upper house on Saturday.

Also on Friday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, scheduled a closure vote -� which limits debate and moves the bill towards a vote on final passage -� on the anti-surge resolution debated in the House.

"The Republican-controlled Senate was silent on Iraq for four years," Mr Reid said. "We demand an up or down vote on the resolution the House is debating."

However, it would be more difficult for the Democrats to win a vote in the Senate where they do not have a clear majority. A more complicated bipartisan resolution has languished in the Senate for weeks.

Public support for the war has continued to decline since President Bush ordered the invasion in 2003. A majority of Americans � 53 per cent -- said the US should withdraw from Iraq, according to a poll by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

Thirty-five per cent of those questioned in the Feb 7-11 survey said the US should begin a gradual withdrawal from Iraq during the next year or two, while 16 per cent said it should be immediate.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/17/top8.htm