zimv20
Sep 11, 2003, 07:13 PM
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479719798&p=
In detailing its request for $87bn (€77bn, £55bn) to fund the "war on terrorism" for the forthcoming year, the White House budget office said this week that a vast majority of those funds - $51bn - would go directly to military operations in Iraq.
It noted that $800m of that spending would go to coalition members who cannot afford to deploy their own troops. An additional $300m would go to new life-saving body armour; and $140m to heavily armoured Humvees to protect its soldiers.
But apart from those few details, the Bush administration has been tight-lipped about where the huge sums - which come on top of $62bn appropriated for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in April - are going. Because Iraq military efforts are being funded outside the normal appropriations process, in so-called "supplemental" or emergency spending bills, the funding does not go through the same rigorous congressional oversight to which normal Pentagon spending is subject annually.
John Hamre, a former Pentagon budget chief who headed the administration-backed team of external experts to examine rebuilding efforts this summer, has said the $4bn a month the Defence Department is spending on military operations is high even by Pentagon standards: "A lot of people I know can't figure out why that number is so expensive."
In detailing its request for $87bn (€77bn, £55bn) to fund the "war on terrorism" for the forthcoming year, the White House budget office said this week that a vast majority of those funds - $51bn - would go directly to military operations in Iraq.
It noted that $800m of that spending would go to coalition members who cannot afford to deploy their own troops. An additional $300m would go to new life-saving body armour; and $140m to heavily armoured Humvees to protect its soldiers.
But apart from those few details, the Bush administration has been tight-lipped about where the huge sums - which come on top of $62bn appropriated for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in April - are going. Because Iraq military efforts are being funded outside the normal appropriations process, in so-called "supplemental" or emergency spending bills, the funding does not go through the same rigorous congressional oversight to which normal Pentagon spending is subject annually.
John Hamre, a former Pentagon budget chief who headed the administration-backed team of external experts to examine rebuilding efforts this summer, has said the $4bn a month the Defence Department is spending on military operations is high even by Pentagon standards: "A lot of people I know can't figure out why that number is so expensive."
