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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (8333)	2/5/2004 12:59:00 AM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Crime is a jobs program!!!!! It also feeds the right wing agendas. Bush's friends live behind huge gates with security guards so what do they care about street crime? What do you think of Kerry? Is he running well up in your state? Pat

To: Mephisto who wrote (8333)	2/6/2004 1:28:38 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Rumsfeld budget criticized for omitting Iraq costs Wed Feb 4, 5:47 PM ET story.news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrats criticized US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for omitting the cost of US military operations in Iraq from his proposed 401.7 billion dollar 2005 defense budget. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee , Rumsfeld defended the decision to submit a budget without taking into account the estimated cost of the occupation, saying it was established practice for such costs to be funded with add-ons approved after the fact. Pentagon officials have said they do not anticipate requesting new funding for Iraq until next year, putting it well past the November 2 presidential election. "I don't think I'm the only one who's alarmed at the significant costs associated with Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq that are not included in this budget, and that these off-book transactions are potentially dangerous and misleading," said Senator Jack Reed. Senator Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) said waiting until after the election to request funds was "inappropriate." Democrats also took issue with Rumsfeld for using emergency powers to temporarily increase the size of the army by some 30,000 troops, rather than requesting a formal increase in the army's authorized troop strength in the 2005 budget. The issue is a sore one because Rumsfeld for months has rejected calls for an increase in the army's size to ease stress on the force, just as he dismissed former army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki's pre-war estimate that pacifying Iraq would take several hundred thousand troops. At his retirement ceremony last August, Shinseki warned: "Beware the 12 division strategy for a 10 division army." General Peter Schoomaker, the new army chief of staff, told Congress last week he will use a special authorization to increase the size of his force for three or four years while he reorganizes the army to create more combat ready battalions with the same number of troops. "The demand (for troops), in my opinion, is not a temporary spike," said Representative Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee, which also held a hearing on the military budget. Rumsfeld acknowledged Iraq had put strains on the force and increased demand for ground troops. "One can't know, of certain knowledge, whether it will prove to be a spike," he said. "But we believe it's a spike, driven by the deployment of some 115,000 troops in Iraq and still more, another increment, in Afghanistan," he said.