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$70 billion sought for war costs(Chicago Tribune (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 3--WASHINGTON -- The White House said Thursday that it will ask Congress to approve $70 billion in additional spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2006, bringing the overall costs of those conflicts to nearly $400 billion by the end of the budget year in September. In addition, President Bush will request a place-holding $50 billion for the wars in the new 2007 spending plan that the White House will unveil Monday. But, like the $50 billion that the White House initially included for war in this year's budget, the Office of Management and Budget maintains that the real cost for 2007, dictated by "events on the ground," is impossible to forecast. The request for more money came on a day when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned against underestimating the global terrorist threat. "The enemy--while weakened and under great pressure--is still capable of global reach, still possesses the determination to kill more Americans, and still trying to do so with increasingly powerful weapons," Rumsfeld said at the National Press Club in Washington. The Defense Department maintains it is spending about $4.5 billion a month on the conflict in Iraq, or about $100,000 per minute. Current spending in Afghanistan is about $800 million a month, or about $18,000 per minute. The cost of the war in Iraq is clearly surpassing anyone's early estimates, including those of the administration. Bush aide Lawrence Lindsey suggested in 2002 that a war in Iraq could cost as much as $200 billion, an estimate considered so high--and so impolitic--it helped lead to his ouster from the administration. The request for a supplemental $70 billion means the wars will cost about $120 billion for the 2006 budget year, the same as their cost in fiscal 2005. "We think we will again need a $50 billion bridge [for '07], so we are identifying that," said Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a conference call with reporters. "It is a bridge. It is not meant to be an estimate of what the '07 fiscal year costs will be. . . . That will be determined by events on the ground." Last month, the White House warned that war expenses and the cost of recovery from Hurricane Katrina would contribute to a federal budget deficit for 2006 that exceeded $400 billion. The White House promises a specific projection of the budget deficit next week. The record deficit, $412 billion, was in 2004. The cost of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, rebuilding in those countries and running the U.S. Embassies there already has run to about $320 billion since the beginning of the wars, according to the Pentagon. The new $70 billion request would bring the total cost to at least $390 billion by the time the fiscal year ends in September. That's a war cost of more than $1,250 for every American. With low-balled estimates of the war's costs included in the president's annual budgets and significantly higher supplemental budgets sought each year, congressional Democrats accuse the administration of misleading Congress and the public about the true costs. "It just shows that these guys are incapable of honest accounting," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "If they need money, it should be put in their budget." In addition, pushing the overall costs closer to $400 billion by year's end and adding an additional $50 billion estimate for the year ahead suggests there is "no end in sight," he said. "It calls into question whether 2006 is a transition year." As the administration has drawn down American troops in Iraq from about 130,000 before the parliamentary elections in December to about 118,000, Bush has insisted that no timeline can be set for withdrawals. As Iraqi security forces "stand up," Bush said again during an appearance this week in Nashville, American forces will "stand down." Noting that Bush pledged during his State of the Union address this week that American forces will have the resources they need, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the supplemental $70 billion that Bush is seeking is "essential for our military forces." The money will cover the operation of military forces, including pay and benefits for reserve and active-duty forces, money for equipment to protect troops from bombs as well as money to replace equipment and for the operations of the U.S. Embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan. A breakdown was not released Thursday. "The defense budget has gone up every year in the last five years," Rumsfeld said Thursday, warning again that Iraq is the central front in a war on terrorism. "The United States is not going to lose wars or battles with our capabilities out across the globe," Rumsfeld said. "The battle--the true battle--is a test of will, and the battleground--the battle space--is less Iraq and less Afghanistan and more here in the United States and the capitals of Western nations." On Thursday, The Associated Press said officials and documents indicated that the Defense Department budget for 2007 would be $439.3 billion, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year. White House chief economic adviser Allan Hubbard maintains that Bush still will be able to keep his re-election campaign promise of cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009--though that target is based on a slightly higher projected deficit than the record $412 billion that was reached in 2004. |