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View Full Version : The U.S. armed services have requested a $160 billion For Iraq/Afghanistan



beltman713
11-10-2006, 11:40 PM
http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2F 2006%2F11%2F08%2Firaq-appropriatons-bill-elect-biz-wash-cx_jh_1109iraq.html%3Fpartner%3Ddaily_newsletter

A Staggering New Bill For Iraq?
Jessica Holzer and Matthew Swibel 11.09.06, 6:00 AM ET

The U.S. armed services have requested a $160 billion supplemental appropriation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the remainder of fiscal year 2007--a staggering amount that, if approved by the Defense Department, may hasten the showdown between resurgent congressional Democrats and the Bush administration over the budget-busting War on Terror.

The request--which will likely include all costs related to the war on terrorism--far surpasses the $94 billion supplemental authorized earlier this year to fund the ongoing wars as well as hurricane recovery in the Gulf and is nearly double the $82 billion Iraq war supplemental outlay of 2005. It comes within days of Republicans' stunning losses in the midterm elections and the resignation of embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was set to decide on the request Nov. 15.

President Bush said Wednesday that he would nominate as Rumsfeld's replacement Robert Gates, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency under the presidency of his father, George H.W. Bush.

While House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has vowed not to undercut the troops in the field, defense experts said that she and other Democratic leaders probably hadn't anticipated the massive request.

"I'm not sure they've grasped the potential size of this forthcoming supplemental request. We'll just have to see whether they can choke down that amount of dough," said Tom Donnelly, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Bush said in a White House news conference Wednesday morning that he had reached out to the Democratic leadership of the new Congress and hopes to work closely with them. He made no mention of this supplemental appropriation for the War on Terror.

While a good chunk of the $160 billion request will be used to replace worn equipment, it also covers additional systems, armor and weaponry and thus is a blueprint for pressing on with the current troop levels in Iraq and strategy in the War on Terror.

"It's not just going to be 'I broke my tank, and I want to fix it,'" Donnelly said.

Small-cap defense contractors, such as DRS Technologies (nyse: DRS - news - people ), Essex (nasdaq: KEYW - news - people ) and Armor Holdings (nyse: AH - news - people ), are particularly sensitive to defense supplementals because they don't hold as much sway over the regular defense appropriations process. However, they are not likely to be counting on a defense supplemental of such size.

Critics contend that the Bush administration has skirted the normal budget process for these defense expenditures to avoid scrutiny of the costs of the ongoing wars. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has sponsored legislation to fold these war costs into regular defense spending bills.

Such emergency supplementals are often used for spending that doesn’t past muster in the light of the normal budget process: For example, more than $7.5 billion in spending slashed from the 2005 defense appropriations bill was restored in the next supplemental, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

And they are magnets for pork from both sides of the aisle. In the 2005 defense and tsunami relief supplemental, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, added $40 million for flood damage and mitigation in the Manoa Valley on the island of Oahu.