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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (22378)	5/14/2004 12:07:14 AM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Pricetag for US operations in Iraq to rise steeply: Wolfowitz Thu May 13, 7:16 PM ET Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo! WASHINGTON (AFP) - The pricetag for US military operations in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) next year will greatly exceed the 25 billion dollars requested just last week by the White House, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told lawmakers. "It will sure be much-much larger than 25 billion dollars," Wolfowitz said, adding that a request for another tranche of funds will likely be sent from the Pentagon (news - web sites) to the Congress "early next calendar year." "Our higher projected troop levels increase the risk that certain accounts, especially operation maintenance army, could have difficulty cash flowing operations beyond the February-March time frame in 2005. "This reserve fund will eliminate that risk and provide a margin of safety," Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites). He refused however, to be pinned down on just how expensive the operations in Iraq were like to go. "It continues to be impossible to know what our total supplemental funding needs will be for the next fiscal year -- particularly after the election in Afghanistan and after sovereignty is transferred in Iraq," Wolfowitz said. "Depending on the circumstances, we could face the need for either more troops or fewer troops, for more intensive operations or less intensive operations." Democrats in the committee criticized the George W. Bush administration for allegedly squandering funds already granted by Congress to fund operations in Iraq. "The administration has acted too unilaterally in many ways in the Iraq war," said US Senator Carl Levin. "They've failed to budget for the costs of the war. Now they want, apparently, as I read these letters, what amounts to a blank check for the supplemental costs," Levin said. "We've been pressing to write a check, but not a blank check," Levin said. "We need to support our men and women in uniform who are performing very difficult and challenging tasks under dangerous circumstances, but we should do so in a way which provides the accountability that the taxpayers expect and deserve."