Bush To Seek $245B For War Costs

President Wants Additional $100B For This Year And $145B For 2008

(AP)  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 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 Pentagon — on top of $70 billion approved by Congress in September — and is about $6 billion less than the Pentagon's request 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.

Mr. Bush has said his five-year plan will bring a balanced budget by 2012, but the claim has met with some skepticism 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 won't be unveiled until Monday. "This is our best guess."

The spiraling increases in war spending — up from $120 billion approved by Congress for 2006 — are 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 Mr. 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.

The Administration defends such acquisitions since the Joint Strike Fighter would replace F-16s lost in Iraq, and there are no assembly lines open for the 30-year-old airplanes.

The additional budget request for Iraq is far below ambitious lists assembled by the service branches, who were given a green light last fall by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who instructed the four military services that they could add projects connected to the broader fight against terrorism. Critics said that could be interpreted to cover almost anything.

Those lists were met with resistance in the White House and on Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon pared them back in the request it forwarded to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which trimmed them further.

The war costs come on top of a record request for the Defense Department's core budget, which is expected to reach about $480 billion in 2008.

[davey214]

It is very clear that money spent on sucessful research for 100% energy independence would make spending all this other money unnecessary.

[littlegran1]

Aww come on guys. It's all a part of Bushie's family history. Prescott Sheldon Bush (grandpappy) and Samuel Prescott Bush (great-grandpappy) were just as bad as he is.

[firststate]

antoniorego
History is more likely to record the moron in the white house as the 21st century American version ancient Rome's Nero, who led the attempt to dismantle the people's rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution and create a monarchy. Our best hope is that his record of achievements in business will continue into his attempt at unravelling of the basis for our democratic republic. He's failed in everything else he's tried, so there's hope. Even the Saudis won't be willing to pump in enough money to bail him out of the mess he's made this time. He's run the United States the way his buddies Lay and Skilling ran Enron.

[firststate]

Just how many active and reserve soldiers are left in the United States, minus the 'surge' troops he wants to send?
Posted by darkfyreaol


Three ( 3 ) plus the commander incompetence.

[exusmcsgt]

Muislims are bad people who hate western morals. For everyone on here who says that George W. Bush is wrong, history will prove that he did the right thing and was a great brave president.

Posted by antoniorego at 01:28 AM : Feb 03, 2007


History is never that blind. History will judge Bush as the guy who spent a trillion dollrs and thousands of American lives just to take Iraq apart and reduce it to secular states.

[karlimhof]

Updated: 9:18 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2007
LAUSANNE, Switzerland - A ruling by Switzerland%u2019s highest court released Friday has opened up the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.

I'll split the cost with anyone else for Bush/Cheney travel arranements to Switzerland. Are we on?

[darkfyreaol]

Here's an honest question, political opinions aside.

Just how many active and reserve soldiers are left in the United States, minus the 'surge' troops he wants to send?

[clemenhagen1]

Posted by DUMBASSMOFO: The increases in war spending are largely to replace equipment destroyed in combat or worn out in harsh conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same equipment the Demotards were whining about right after they realized bashing the war was good for their popularity!

Attention Badax/*******: The Dem "complaints" about equipment stem from our troops not being properly equipped. Captain Codpiece and the rest of the "use our troops as campaign props and cannon fodder" crowd refuse to provide such basic elements as armored vehicles and body armor. Combine that with the Democrats calls for taking care of the veterans wounded in battle, and you begin to see the true champions of the troops. Why did so many Gulf War and Iraqi veterans run this past election as democrats? Bottom line: your crowd wants more funding (it's topped one trillion dollars already) so that fraudulent "no-bid" contracts and other war profiteering can be perpetuated. The Democrats prefer to demand a little accountability for the graft and corruption, not to mention genuine support for the troops.

[darkfyreaol]

The last I checked, one's check would bounce if their bank account was swimming in red ink. I think it's called 'insufficient funds'.

Somehow the President seems to be color blind, seeing black ink when it isn't there.

Or maybe he sees black oil?

[kstrisha]

Quote:

The war costs come on top of a record request for the Defense Department's core budget, which is expected to reach about $480 billion in 2008.

--------

Thank you Mr. President for driving this once great country into the ground. (sarcasm)

This is why Americans are paying more for fuel for our homes and cars that ever before, and this is why our schools and health care have been neglected. All of this has been done to free Iraq from what...the peace and civility it had before we invaded?

[johnshaft4]

This has so much 'fuzzy math' growing on it that a 'Weed Whacker won't help...

[firststate]

The new white house pastry chef is also the author of a cookbook for desserts. Get this, it's "Desserts for Dummies," now tell me that doesn't fit.

[fascistusa]

Lord Bush & Neo-Con Inc. seem to be Money Addicted.

The side effect is that turns their skin a bit Green and their souls no longer occupy their bodies.

No one seems to know where the money goes. It just goes. Iraq? Nah. Some Elite's Bank Account.

Does Betty Ford have a treatment plan for this?

Soon, these addicts will be giving B.J.s for Billions to get their money fix.

[j-whitman]

Just Great,,,
-- Idiot Boy is asking for more money -- The $hithead just hired a new Pastry Chef for the White House

[exusmcsgt]

%u201CThe NIE does a very nice job of making clear the trajectory that Iraq is on,%u201D says former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollard. %u201CAnd that trajectory is straight down.%u201D

And Bush thinks it's worth another $245 billion. No wonder he failed as a businessman....

[gdmoore2]

A slight correction: Bush is doing a great job ON Americans, not for Americans. Bush will be remembered as the worst President in U.S. history.

[frankly6]

Better add another 25 billion for the new no-bid Halliburton contract to create mass graves for all the surplus bodies being created by Bush's Iraqi-style Democracy.

[love_you-2009]

Mr. Bush is doing a great job for Americans!

He do all that to bring oil and make your economy stable.

And still you saying bad things about him!!

[gdmoore2]

phineasgage: The small percentage by which Bush was elected in 2004 is not a mandate. The large percentage by which Democrats won in the in November 2006 elections, including the loss of both Houses of Congress, is a mandate, and not in Bush's favor. As the saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

[frankly6]

He's done such an amazing job with the first 400 billion, why shouldn't we give him another 245 billion? Mission acomplished! Freedom's on the march!