World

Report: Military Spending Lags On Iraq

April 16, 2006 / 9:31 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The U.S. military has spent just 40 percent of the $7 billion appropriated in 2005 for the training of Iraqi and Afghanistan security forces, a top Pentagon priority that is the lynchpin for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The slow pace of spending was outlined in a congressional report that also raised questions about whether the Pentagon needs the full $5.9 billion it has requested for training this year in an emergency spending bill that is pending in Congress.

The report comes as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Bush administration have complained about cuts in the funding for Iraqi forces that is included in the House-passed version of the bill.

In a report, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said the Pentagon is spending at a slower rate than Defense Department officials initially expected. As of Jan. 1, the report said, the Pentagon had allocated $2.1 billion, or just 37 percent, of the $5.7 billion in Iraqi training funds for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The report comes as news disseminates that dozens of Iraqi police were missing Friday and nine were dead after insurgents ambushed their convoy as they left a U.S. base where they had picked up new vehicles, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

Brig. Gen. Abbas Maadal complained that the Americans refused to allow the police to spend Thursday night at the base, just north of the capital. But U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said no such request had been made and that the Iraqis had not asked for American troops to guard the convoy.

In other developments:

Two U.S. Marines were killed and 22 were wounded, two of them critically, in fighting in western Iraq, the U.S. command announced Saturday. Two of the wounded were in critical condition. A U.S. statement said the casualties occurred Thursday as a result of "enemy action" in Anbar province, but did not give a specific location or provide details of the fighting. It said one Marine, assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, died "at the scene of the attack." Another Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5, died at a medical facility in Taqqadum, the statement added.

The new U.S. Embassy will be a fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent future. It also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome. "We can't talk about it. Security reasons,'' Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked about the project.

A suicide car bomber in the southern province of Basra targeted a British military convoy outside the Shuaiba military base about 12.43 miles southwest of Basra city, killing at least one civilian and wounding four British troops, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, at least seven people were wounded in another suicide car bomb attack on a police station, police said. Police saw the vehicle coming and fired at the driver, preventing him from entering the compound, an official said.

On the political front, leaders of the Shiite alliance said they will attend next week's parliament session even if they haven't reached agreement on names for the top political posts in Iraq's next government. Members of the alliance will meet this weekend to discuss the posts including the position of prime minister, at the core of the political debate behind a long-standing stalemate and also attend the parliament session, scheduled for Monday, said Sabah al-Saedi, a Shiite politician.

Growing criticism from former U.S. generals over Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war has put the White House in defense mode. Despite calls for his resignation, a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld is not considering it.

A Japanese court on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by about 3,200 citizens claiming that Japan's troop dispatch to Iraq was unconstitutional. Japan's government has sent about 550 troops to southern Iraq since early 2004 to purify water, repair schools and help in other humanitarian tasks — the country's largest overseas military operation since the end of World War II.

The raid was the deadliest against police in months, began about 7:30 p.m. Thursday as a convoy of 109 police was traveling through a sparsely populated area near the Taji base heading back to Najaf, 100 miles to the south, Maadal said.

Police heard cries of "Allahu akbar," or God is great, and "long live jihad" broadcast by loudspeaker from a nearby mosque, Maadal said. Suddenly insurgents, including some women, opened fire and triggered a roadside bomb.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spending report also said Congress may want more advance notice and details of the Pentagon's plans to provide equipment to the Iraqi and Afghan forces.

Army Lt. Col. Michael J. Negard, spokesman for the training mission in Iraq, said the military's focus on increased security there during the recent elections caused some of the delay in spending. He said the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq is responsible for close to $5.4 billion of the $5.9 billion, and the pace of spending has picked up since the beginning of the year.

"By June, July we will have obligated about 95 percent of the appropriated funds overall and are on a good glide path to achieve that goal," Negard said. "We are responsible with the funding and closely scrutinize the projects" to ensure the money is spent to best support the transfer of control to the Iraqi security forces.

Defense officials had projected they would have spent 75 percent of the money by the first of this year, and fell short of half that amount.

The spending for Afghanistan is moving a bit more quickly. As of Jan. 1, the Pentagon had appropriated $733 million — or 56 percent — of the $1.3 billion set aside for training and equipping Afghan troops. Defense officials had projected they would spend 64 percent during that time.

In a radio interview last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld complained about the difficulty in getting Congress to quickly approve funds to help develop the Iraqi and Afghan armies and police.

"Our government and our Congress are not really organized effectively to build partner nation capabilities," Rumsfeld said in an interview on Nashville's WTN. "We can sustain financially five or six or seven or eight Afghan or Iraqi soldiers for the expense of one of ours, and yet we have a terrible time getting approval through the Congress to use some of the funds to develop the capacity."

Over the past year, military officials have stepped up the training of Iraqi security forces, saying that as the local army grows stronger and a unified government takes hold, the U.S. will be able to withdraw troops. There are about 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, but officials have said they would like that number reduced to about 100,000 by the end of the year.

So far, Negard said, 135,000 Iraqi police and 115,000 military troops have been trained. The goal is to train roughly 195,000 police and 130,000 military, he said.

On Friday, Brig. Gen. Rebecca Halstead told Pentagon reporters that training the Iraqi Army to handle logistics, such as transporting materials, vehicle maintenance and supporting combat troops, is difficult but is coming along slowly. Halstead, who is commander of the 3rd Corps Support Command, said her troops are responsible for training eight of the nine planned Iraqi transportation regiments, with about 800 Iraqi soldiers in each.

Speaking from Balad, Iraq, Halstead said the first of those regiments will not be able to operate independently with their own Iraqi Army division for a few months yet, and officials hope to have all nine working with their divisions by early 2007. Combat troops have been the training priority in Iraq, followed later by the training and equipping of logistics support units.