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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (744848)	7/9/2006 12:11:59 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769669

Where did your strange "one million a day" number come from??????????? We are currently running WELL in excess of FIVE BILLION per MONTH. (Up to EIGHT BILLION when certain other costs are included, such as equipment replacement costs and long-term medical care). NOTE: these figures still exclude the interest costs on the huge debt that is being piled up! Now, Scott... how many days are in a month?

To: Srexley who wrote (744848)	7/9/2006 12:13:20 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769669

Army, Taxed by War Costs, Struggles to Pay Bills at Home July 9, 2006 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS nytimes.com FORT SAM HOUSTON, Tex., July 8 (AP) — A diversion of money for the war in Iraq has helped create a $530 million shortfall for Army posts at home and abroad, leaving some of them unable to pay utility bills or even cut the grass, military officials say. In San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston has not paid its $1.4 million monthly utility bill since March, prompting workers in many of the post's administrative buildings to receive automated disconnection notices. Fort Bragg in North Carolina says it will not buy any office supplies until the new fiscal year starts in October. And in Kentucky, Fort Knox closed one of its eight dining halls for a month and laid off 133 contract workers. "Every time something goes away, it impacts a person: a soldier or their family or one of our civilians," said Col. Wendy Martinson, garrison commander at Fort Sam Houston, which has 27,300 military and civilian workers. "I'm charged with taking care of them, not taking things away from them." Garrisons function as the city halls of Army installations, providing services like garbage removal, mail delivery and firefighting. The Installation Management Agency of the Army is $530 million short of what it needs through Oct. 1 to finance garrisons at the 117 installations it oversees in the United States, Europe and Asia, said an agency spokesman, Stephen Oertwig. The increasing cost of fuel is partly to blame, and it costs more to pay civilians in Asia and Europe, Mr. Oertwig said. Another major factor is the practice of financing the war through spending bills outside the annual budget. As Congress spent months debating a supplemental spending bill, the Army had to divert money from the Installation Management Agency's budget to cover the cost of the war, Mr. Oertwig said. The Army often diverts operations money for other programs, in times of war and peace, said Jeremiah Gertler, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The supplemental spending bill usually replenishes those funds. This year, though, most of the military money in the $94.5 billion bill was earmarked for the war, leaving little to pay back operations accounts, Mr. Gertler said. Military officials could have asked for more money to ease the garrison budget crunch, but they knew a bigger request would have created a bigger fight in Congress, Mr. Gertler said. "The Pentagon is reluctant to ask for any more than they need for the war because it all looks like it's going to the war and becomes a very controversial bill," Mr. Gertler said. But Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, the liberal-leaning research organization, said money management seemed to be the larger problem. The Defense Department spends about as much on maintenance and operations as it does on weapons and personnel combined, Mr. O'Hanlon said, so there should be more than enough for the bills. "It makes me worry if the Pentagon can't do its accounting well enough to find money for its electric bills," he said. "It just boggles my mind a little bit." The legislation that Congress approved on June 15 included $722 million for the Installation Management Agency, to be split among its installations. Colonel Martinson did not know how much Fort Sam Houston would get, but she said she expected it would be enough to pay the electricity bill. A spokesman for CPS Energy said the company understood the problem and would not turn off the lights any time soon. However, the new money will not save the jobs of about 100 contract workers Colonel Martinson dismissed. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

To: Srexley who wrote (744848)	7/9/2006 12:16:03 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769669

37 Sunni Arabs Slain in Baghdad Ambush By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 9, 2006 Filed at 7:31 a.m. ET nytimes.com BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Masked Shiite gunmen stopped cars in western Baghdad Sunday and grabbed people off the streets, singling out the Sunni Arabs among them and killing at least 37, police said. The attack in the Jihad neighborhood apparently was retaliation for the car bombing of a local Shiite mosque the night before. Police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said 37 bodies were taken to hospitals and police were searching for more victims reportedly left dumped in the streets. He also said U.S. and Iraqi forces had sealed off the area. Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, a Sunni, called the attack ''a real and ugly massacre.'' He blamed Iraqi security forces that are widely believed to have been infiltrated by Shiite militia. ''There are officers who instead of being in charge should be questioned and referred to judicial authorities,'' al-Zubaie told Al-Jazeera TV. ''Jihad is witnessing a catastrophic crime.'' At about 10 a.m. gunmen pulled up in four cars in the dangerous Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad and began seizing pedestrians and people in vehicles, according to police and witnesses. An Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Shiite militiamen wearing masks and black uniforms were roaming the neighborhood, checking people's identity cards, presumably for Sunni names. ''They are killing civilians according to their identity cards,'' he said. The Sunni Arabs were singled out and driven away. Their bodies were found later dumped on streets throughout the neighborhood, Abdul-Razzaq said, adding that police had collected at least 37 bodies. Clashes also broke out in northwestern Baghdad between U.S. forces and members of the Mahdi army, the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Three militia members were killed, police said. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. In other violence Sunday, gunmen killed an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, one of several deadly shootings targeting security forces. The officer was gunned down after his car was intercepted in the center of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, health official Salim al-Abadi said. Gunmen also opened fire on a foot patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing a policeman, police said. Another policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Kirkuk. A funeral was held Sunday for a former senior Baath Party official and his 5-year-old granddaughter. Both were gunned down Saturday night while driving in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, police said. A mortar round hit a home in another area in Dora, wounding three children. In other violence Saturday, gunmen on a motorcycle shot to death two men who were security officers during Saddam Hussein's regime as they were walking in separate locations of Karbala, police said. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press