Bush to seek $80B for Iraq, Afghan wars
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-25 09:14

The Bush administration plans to announce Tuesday it will request about $80 billion more for this year's costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides said Monday.

U.S. Army 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry soldiers search a building on patrol in Mosul, Iraq Monday, Jan. 24, 2005. U.S. and Iraqi officials fear a spike in bloodshed and have announced massive security measures to protect voters from possible insurgent attacks during the elections. [AP]

The request would push the total provided so far for those wars and for U.S. efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion since the first money was provided shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

That would be nearly half the $613 billion the United States spent for World War I or the $623 billion it expended for the Vietnam War, when the costs of those conflicts are translated into 2005 dollars.

White House officials refused to comment on the war spending package, which will be presented as the United States confronts a new string of violence in Iraq as that country's Jan. 30 elections approach.

The forthcoming request underscored how the war spending has clearly exceeded initial White House estimates. Early on, then-presidential economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey placed Iraq costs of $100 billion to $200 billion, only to see his comments derided by administration colleagues.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday it was Congress' "highest responsibility" to provide the money that American troops need. But in a written statement, she said Democrats would ask questions about Bush's policies there.

"What are the goals in Iraq, and how much more money will it cost to achieve them? Why hasn't the president and the Pentagon provided members of Congress a full accounting of previous expenditures?," Pelosi added.

US President Bush, right, meets with Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004. Bush is getting ready to ask Congress for another $80 billion for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as budget analysts prepare new estimates of the federal deficits that would have loomed even without the wars. [AP]

She also said she wanted to know why Iraqi troops aren't playing a larger role in security there.

The package will not formally be sent to Congress until after President Bush introduces his 2006 budget on Feb. 7, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonmity. They said White House budget chief Joshua Bolten or other administration officials would describe the spending request publicly Tuesday.

Until now, the White House had not been expected to reveal details of the war package until after the budget's release.

The decision to do so earlier comes after congressional officials argued to the administration that withholding the war costs from Bush's budget would open the budget to criticism that it was an unrealistic document, one aide said. Last year, the spending plan omitted war expenditures and received just that critique.

Adding additional pressure, the Congressional Budget Office planned to release a semi-annual report on the budget Tuesday that was expected to include a projection of war costs. Last September, the nonpartisan budget office projected the 10-year costs of the wars at $1.4 trillion at current levels of operations, and $1 trillion if the wars were gradually phased down.

Aides said about three-fourths of the $80 billion was expected to be for the Army, which is bearing the brunt of the fighting in Iraq. It also was expected to include money for building a U.S. embassy in Baghdad, which has been estimated to cost $1.5 billion.

One aide said the request will also include funds to help the new Afghan government combat drug-trafficking. It might also have money to help two new leaders the U.S. hopes will be allies, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko.

The aides said the package Bush eventually submits to Congress will also include money to help Indian Ocean countries hit by the devastating December tsunami.

Not including the latest package, lawmakers have so far provided the Defense Department with $203 billion for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorists, according to the Congressional Research Service.

That includes $121 billion for the war in Iraq, $53 billion for Afghanistan and $29 billion for improved security and anti-terror efforts in the United States and abroad.

The research service is an arm of Congress that provides reports to lawmakers and aides.

In addition, Congress has provided nearly $21 billion for rebuilding Iraq and almost $4 billion for Afghan reconstruction. Large portions of that money has not been spent, especially in Iraq, where an armed insurgency and bureaucratic delays have slowed many projects.

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