Official: Bush to Seek $25B for Iraq War

[zimv20]

link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=2&u=/ap/20040505/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_spending)


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration asked Congress Wednesday for a $25 billion down payment for next year's U.S. operations in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), a retreat from the White House's earlier plans not to seek the money until after the November elections.

The money — half of what White House officials have said they expect to need for 2005 — is designed to carry the military through the first months of the new budget year, which starts next Oct. 1. Congress is likely to be adjourned for much of that period, and the Army in particular would be expected to face a cash crunch unless funds were approved beforehand.

(more)

well, that answers the question if the request would come before the election. i suppose it's politically best it get it out, over with, and out of the public memory asap.

[numediaman]

$25 billion seems on the low side considering that the burn rate is supposedly a billion a week in Iraq alone.

Friedman, Bush's war champion at the NY Times, seems to be having some doubts about things:

Restoring Our Honor
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 6, 2004

We are in danger of losing something much more important than just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It's no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving.

This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all.

That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — today, not tomorrow or next month, today. What happened in Abu Ghraib prison was, at best, a fundamental breakdown in the chain of command under Mr. Rumsfeld's authority, or, at worst, part of a deliberate policy somewhere in the military-intelligence command of sexually humiliating prisoners to soften them up for interrogation, a policy that ran amok.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06FRIE.html

Friedman might want to consider his own reputation, but that's for another time, I guess.

[IJ Reilly]

This has the markings of an emergency appropriation request to cover cost overruns. Congress was led to expect a request for more money around the beginning of the year, and no matter who wins in November, they almost certainly still will get one. I have an idea this is the minimum funding required to stave off a cash flow crisis until after the election.

I think this brings the tab for the occupations to $200 billion, or very nearly.

[mactastic]

Ah yes... cheap and easy was how this war was sold. So were those lies, or was it total incompetence? Either way heads need to roll in order for the US to regain ANY credibility in the world community again.

[toontra]

I think this brings the tab for the occupations to $200 billion, or very nearly.

One has to ask, what good could be done in the world for $200 billion? How much humanitarian benefit would that buy?

Is bringing "democracy" to Iraq worth that, leaving aside the legality, death for one moment?

[Stelliform]

and out of the public memory asap.

Heh, I think in the last 12 years, public memory and attention span has dissolved to just a month. No matter who is screaming, the media just cannot sell it for longer than that.

[mactastic]

Heh, I think in the last 12 years, public memory and attention span has dissolved to just a month. No matter who is screaming, the media just cannot sell it for longer than that.

Unless it involves a celebrity trial, or a sex scandal.... :eek:

Then we're riveted.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Seems old George has a habit of underestimating costs, didnt someone in his administration say this thing would cost a lot more before he left or was fired? i forget who it was. Same crap with his medicare drug plan. George is spinning numbers or is simply a liar. I keep thinking what we could have accomplished with 137 billion of our tax dollars and all we got was Saddam and 700 dead Americans. 137 billion and counting :mad: 137 billion! imagine our Healthcare system or Space Program if it had 137 billion to throw away. This is enough reason to vote his rawhide back to Texas.