Sorry bubba.... obviously your 6th grade Nazi teacher did not get through to you that the proper term is HANGED.
Bush Requesting Nearly $75 Billion for War Costs
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID FIRESTONE
WASHINGTON, March 24 — President Bush will ask Congress for $74.7 billion to pay for the war in Iraq, a senior administration official said tonight, but the money covers anticipated expenses for only the next six months. It does not cover any war expenses after the end of the current fiscal year, on Sept. 30, or the long-term costs of reconstruction.
The amount, one of the most intensely debated figures in the capital, is the first real insight into the expectations of the White House about the scale and length of the war. The $74.7 billion, the senior administration official said, is to cover six months that are expected to include "a conflict, a period of stabilization in Iraq and the phased withdrawal of a large number of American forces."
The official did not say how long the White House expected the conflict itself to last, although he did repeat the recent words of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the war would go on for "weeks, not months."
While the White House moved to pay for the conflict, administration officials said that Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Mr. Bush's closest ally, would meet with the president at Camp David on Thursday to discuss the course of the war.
The request for war financing, made public on another day of setbacks for the allies in Iraq, immediately opened a new political front between the White House and Congress, including many members of Mr. Bush's own party. Lawmakers are increasingly alarmed about the cost of paying for the president's proposed 10-year, $726 billion tax cut at a time of an expensive war.
The senior administration official said the new war costs would probably bring the fiscal year 2003 deficit close to $400 billion.
The $74.7 billion request includes about $63 billion for fighting the war, including replenishing used munitions and other matériel to prewar levels; about $8 billion for relief efforts and immediate reconstruction; and about $4 billion to better protect the United States against what the administration says is the increased likelihood of terrorist attacks.
The $8 billion in relief and reconstruction would include $5 billion in aid for what the administration official said were "supportive" countries in the region affected by the war, like Pakistan, Israel, Jordan and Turkey. The official said Turkey alone would receive $1 billion, but refused to say what for. On March 1, the Turkish Parliament rejected an American request, along with $6 billion in grants and an unspecified amount of loans, to use Turkey as a base for a northern front in the war.
Congressional officials said the Pentagon had wanted $95 billion for the first phase of the war and for rebuilding Iraq in the postwar period, but the White House budget office cut $32.5 billion.
Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee predicted that the final cost of the war — which will be borne almost entirely by American taxpayers — could be twice the amount requested today, and Pentagon officials did not deny that more requests would be coming.
"We have not budgeted the 2004 budget for the global war on terrorism or the current operation for Iraqi freedom," a senior defense official said today. "It's obvious. How could we budget for something that we didn't know would happen?"
Nonetheless, the spending request was expected to move easily through Congress. John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, said Republican leaders hoped to have the legislation on Mr. Bush's desk before the Easter recess.
"We need to make certain that our men and women in uniform have the resources necessary to get the job done in Iraq," Mr. Hastert said in a statement after the White House meeting. "I expect that both Republicans and Democrats will support this legislation by overwhelming margins." Hearings on the request could begin as soon as Thursday.
An administration official said the costs of moving more than 225,000 American troops to the Persian Gulf and back were $30 billion alone.
The White House has for months resisted telling Congress what the war in Iraq would cost, angering Democrats and a few Republicans who have charged that the administration was stalling until Congress largely committed itself to a budget for next year, as it did last week, that includes most of the huge tax cuts Mr. Bush is seeking.
Tonight, the administration official said Mr. Bush was waiting to see how the initial days of the war unfolded. The official indicated that if Saddam Hussein had been killed in the American cruise missile attack on Wednesday night, the war would have been cheaper.
Even Democrats who are critical of the administration's plan to cut taxes while fighting a war said they would not stand in the way of giving the military what it wants.
"The costs are now being incurred for the war, so they've got to be paid," said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. Democrats, he said, would try to add money to the domestic security section of the spending request.
Other Democrats said they might balk at the administration's effort to place most of the war costs in a discretionary fund that would allow money to be moved around at will by Mr. Rumsfeld.
"We need to know exactly where this money is going," said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. "With all due respect to Don Rumsfeld's brilliance, he has not been given Congress's power of the purse, and it's our job to know exactly what the purpose of this spending is."
Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he supported every dollar needed by the troops to complete their mission, but would not sign a blank check. "We have a duty to the American people to tell up front what is expected, what the costs are in terms of lives and in terms of dollars," he said. "This bill is just a down payment.." |
