White House may want $100 billion more for war

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-costs04.html

WASHINGTON -- Congress expects a new White House request for as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.

It would be the third and largest Iraq-related request from the White House yet, and could push the cost of the Iraq war over $200 billion -- far above the initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

War costs complicate President Bush's plans for initiatives such as overhauling Social Security. They also threaten his pledge to halve the record $413 billion budget deficit.

Jim Dyer, chief of staff of the House Appropriations Committee, traditionally the first stop in Congress for any official request for money, said he expects a funding proposal from the Bush administration by Easter that ''could be around $100 billion,'' the vast majority of it for Iraq.

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[bluestateguy]

1. and I'd like $10 million more for a Beverly Hills mansion

That doesn't mean I deserve to get it, or that the taxpayers should pay for it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Look why don't we just give a million

to every Iraqi adult and just get the hell out of there. It would be a lot cheaper and they might actually rebuild their country.

This is friggin insane.

[arwalden]

5. But Wouldn't That Be Inflationary?

Other than that... it sure sounds a HELL of a sight better than what we're doing now.

-- Allen

The president of the United States is an idiot.

[omulcol]

25. Brilliant idea here,

and compels us to question why Bush considers it justifiable spending so much on foreign freedom and democracy - ( while systematically reducing those of all Americans'. )

If Bush truly desires democracy for Iraq why does he endorse so much pain, suffering, and deprivation amongst Iraqi and American civilians.

We have to remember what this money is for, how it is to be used, and the consequences of it.
It just seems an awful, indecent amount of money to spend on killing innocent people -- and an indecent amount to put in the pockets of those profiting from war.

[Just Me]

37. Is the Pentagon precluded from ANY accounting of such a windfall?

420 billion is already being budgeted for defense. The "war" supplements are on top of that.

Is the Pentagon (& executive) subjected to any requirements of accountability to the public of its expenditures?

[driver8]

47. Indecent amount...

It may seem like an indecent amount to put in the pockets of the war profiteers to you and me, but to Shrubya and his cohorts it is a perfectly sane thing to do. I'm sure Chimpy is thinking "what goes around, comes around" and he knows that when he is no longer President, he is going to be rewarded.

Think of what 100 Billion dollars could do for this country...all the positive things. Schools, health care, teacher's salaries, etc..but Shrub doesn't give a crap about the people of this country. He never has and he never will.

[flygal]

62. How could we be assured they would use Haliburton?

[Bhaisahab]

3. i wish i were a war profiteer. what a bonanza. NT

[benburch]

4. What? Are they gonna just PRINT it?

Because I certify to you the well is dry.

[UpInArms]

6. this supplemental request of $100 billion will not be

included in any of the figures that are used for the budget deficit calculations.

Support our troops - bring 'em home now!

[underpants]

8. Right-it is an off budget item

DC! doesn't count!

[underpants]

7. This war sure has a funny way of paying for itself

huh Wolfowitz?

[FreeStateDemocrat]

9. Yet to get a real answer to what are they doing with all this money?

We have no funds for domestic programs that will help working class Americans in healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure repair and so forth but billions to pour into a bottomless sand pit. The great disconnect continues with no one in the MSM media asking the repukes to explain it.

[leesa]

10. And we go the way the Soviet Union did. Their endless

war sucked them dry and it will do the same to us. Reagan had NOTHING to do with the USSR dissolving.

[NNN0LHI]

12. "Reagan had NOTHING to do with the USSR dissolving" Yes he did

He supplied the Afghan mujahideen (including Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar) with the state of the art weaponry used to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. That was the death nail for the USSR. I hope Russia doesn't decide to repay the favor in Iraq.

Don

[Art_from_Ark]

26. The USSR was headed for the scrap heap long before that

Afghanistan just speeded up the process

[TomClash]

38. As long as you don't praise Reagan for defeating the USSR

your remark is on the mark

[Art_from_Ark]

56. If you knew me,

then you'd know that I'd be the last person to praise Reagan for anything beyond remembering his own name :D

[Massacure]

54. Too bad that nail entered our coffin after it went through the Soviet one.

[NNN0LHI]

55. I can still remember all of America rooting for the Afghan mujahideen

The liberal media had Democrats and Republicans alike on the "freedom fighter" bandwagon. It was almost too good to be true when Osama and the mujahideen kicked them "Godless Ruskies" out of Afghanistan with Americas help. As it turned out, it was too good to be true.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0201/afghanistan-80s.html

Forgotten Coverage of Afghan "Freedom Fighters"

The villains of today's news were heroes in the '80s

The current war in Afghanistan is increasingly presented as a war for the human rights of the Afghan people, to liberate them from their oppressive Taliban rulers. The Taliban’s severely regressive policies toward women have received particular attention, with even First Lady Laura Bush issuing condemnations of this repression. And the press has overwhelmingly followed suit, portraying the war as an ideological struggle against the evils of Islamic extremism.

But the U.S. government and the American press have not always opposed Afghan extremists. During the 1980s, the Mujahiddin guerrilla groups battling Soviet occupation had key features in common with the Taliban. In many ways, the Mujahiddin groups acted as an incubator for the later rise of the Taliban in the 1990s.

The senior members of the Taliban had Mujahiddin combat roles; Taliban leader Mohammed Omar fought with the Mujahiddin and lost an eye in combat. Many of the Taliban members who were too young to participate in that struggle grew up in Mujahiddin-controlled refugee camps in Pakistan. The religious schools from which many Taliban emerged were steeped in the zealous, politicized form of Islam that the Mujahiddin did so much to foster. Many of the Taliban’s ugliest features--notably their mistreatment of women--had clear precedents in the conduct of the Mujahiddin forces.

There has, in short, been a fairly dramatic and Orwellian shift in the tone of public discourse regarding Afghanistan. While Islamic extremism is now viewed with great hostility, in the 1980s U.S. policy strongly supported such extremism; there is scarcely any recognition that a little more than a decade ago, the U.S. press waxed eloquent about the Afghan "freedom fighters." snip

In an effort to augment the Mujahiddin forces, the U.S. encouraged the influx into Afghanistan of thousands of idealistic Muslims, eager to participate in the struggle, from countries throughout the Middle East. One of the first of these expatriate Arabs was Osama bin Laden, who was "recruited by the CIA" in 1979, according to Le Monde (9/15/01). Bin Laden operated along the Pakistani border, where he used his vast family connections to raise money for the Mujahiddin; in doing so, he "worked in close association with U.S. agents," according to Jane’s Intelligence Review (10/1/98).

Despite CIA denials of any direct Agency support for Bin Laden’s activities, a considerable body of circumstantial evidence suggests the contrary. During the 1980s, Bin Laden’s activities in Afghanistan closely paralleled those of the CIA. Bin Laden held accounts in the Bank for Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the bank the CIA used to finance its own covert actions (London Daily Telegraph, 9/27/01). Bin Laden worked especially closely with Hekmatyar--the CIA’s favored Mujahiddin commander (The Economist, 9/15/01). In 1989, the U.S. shipped high-powered sniper rifles to a Mujahiddin faction that included bin Laden, according to a former bin Laden aide (AP, 10/16/01).

Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger would later comment about the Afghans (The Economist, 4/25/98): "We knew they were not very nice people.... We had this terrible problem of making choices." The choice that Weinberger and his colleagues made was, of course, to back the Mujahiddin, along with their Arab supporters, in spite of their records and ideologies. Predictably enough, the press strongly endorsed this policy and proceeded to praise the Mujahiddin groups.

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[IndianaGreen]

57. I thought that was a mistake back then, as did many others

Zbigniew Brzezinski was videotape by US media giving a speech about freedom and democracy to a group of Mujahadin in Afghanistan. Critics of Jimmy Carter's Afghan policy pointed out that the people Brzezinski was speaking to were Islamic radicals that had an agenda that was neither free nor democratic.

Thank you for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, Jimmy and Zbig:

Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the CIA and Britain's MI6. This policy had the explicit aim of promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces to overthrow the secular communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan government in Afghanistan, which had been destabilized by coup attempts against Hafizullah Amin, the power struggle within the Soviet-supported Khalq faction of the PDPA and a subsequent Soviet military intervention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski#Afghanistan

Zbigniew Brzezinski:
How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html

[NNN0LHI]

59. I fell for it. That ain't going to happen no more though n/t

[midnight armadillo]

11. Wasn't this going to pay for itself?

Quote...

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: .There.s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn.t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people.and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years.We.re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon..

[peekaloo]

13. Wolfie really needs to lay off the comb licking....it's affected his brain

[gratuitous]

14. Just so you know

$100 billion is greater than $350 million by a factor of 285. Killing people who never threatened us or did us any harm is 285 times as important as helping the victims of a colossal natural disaster. This is called compassionate conservatism.

Is this a fair comparison? Well, not really. After all, the $350 million for the tsunami victims is just a pledge; the $100 billion for the Iraq war is an estimate, and the estimates so far have been uniformly short of the actual expenditures. So that factor of 285 is probably on the short side.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

16. You Mean Billion Is More Than Million?

I didn't realize that. So you mean by changing the first letter from an M to a B, you change the amount? So even though 385 sounds like more than 100, in reality it's the word following that counts?

I never saw this coming. I thought the war was over and "mission accomplished." Couldn't have imagined we would see Shrub asking for $100 Billion in January '05. I am truly shocked. What is this country coming to?

<Tuesday Morning Sarcasm>

[MaineDem]

15. How long before we're bankrupt?

I'm worried about all this spending.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

17. It's OK

Once we bankrupt social security, we won't have to spend all that needless money on retirees who lost their money to stock market privitization & manipulation.

[driver8]

49. don't worry about going bankrupt -- we can always print more!

It reminds me of the joke "I can't be broke...I still have more checks!"

Fiscal responsibility my ass!

[LynnTheDem]

18. And $100+ billion for 2006...& $100+ billion for 2007...& $100+ billion

for 2008 (Rumsfailed says we may be out of Iraq by the end of 2008)

Reightwingnuts, you are such easily manipulated stupid pathetic little idiotic FOOLS.

[HeeBGBz]

19. I would like some health care

Let's see who gets their wishes granted first.

[Massachusetts]

20. Krugman

As Paul Krugman states, the FABRICATED Social Security Crisis (NO CRISIS), is just a diversion from the REAL FINANCIAL PROBLEMS this country has.

Keep your eye on the ball gang.

Where is the outrage from the majority of citizens in this country?:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :wtf:

[Bouncy Ball]

66. They're watching reality TV!!!

Desperate Housewives, dude!

[indepat]

21. Seem to recall the 'Manhattan Project' cost $2B, man on the moon $24B:

where the hell is all this money going?

[atreides1]

22. "...where the hell is all this money going?"

Someone's offshore bank account, maybe?

[SKKY]

24. Haliburton???

[atreides1]

73. Cayman Islands

I hear they have some of the best banks, that cannot be touched by US
investigators.

[Barkley]

28. But searching Iraqi landfills for metals to protect army vehicles is free

You raised a very good point.

And these were crash programs, which means they were not all that efficient.

And there are technolgical tangible spin-offs that society gained.
The space spinoffs have paid for itself several times over.

To paraphrase MLK: 'We can fly like birds, swim like fish but haven't learned the simple art of living together.'

Maybe living together is not all that easy or maybe we need to try harder

I'm not sure what the constant price value is for the Bomb and moon project were, but I'm sure it wasn't $5 billion per month.

[Drifter]

23. Just Imagine ...

if the AWOL asked for 100 Billion dollars to be put into education and training in this country ?

Oh never mind.

Cheers
Drifter

[Yavin4]

27. Just Give The Keys To The Bureau of Engraving's Printing Press

to Halliburton, and let them print off what they want for a day or so.

[lovuian]

29. Funny how we didn't have money for Social Security

100 Billion would help social security and healthcare

but its going to BS IRAQ!!!

[amazona]

30. $100 billion for war...

...but they're going to cut Social Security benefits by one-third?

Eff them.

[Ravenseye]

39. don't forget the tsunami victims

death tolls continue to rise, millions affected. 350 million. How bout we through a billion or two towards rebuilding in those areas while we're at it.

[muncyc]

31. Maybe the Bush administration should stop spending money frivolously

I don't understand how the Bush administration can sleep at night when they are planning to spend $40 million on a four day celebration of Bush's inauguration. This seems so wrong when the money is needed overseas by our soldiers, their reconstruction efforts, as well as the millions affected by the tsunami. This administration needs to show the American people that they are willing to do without so that the money can go toward a better cause. If the country does not feel that our leaders are able to make these sacrifices, than why should we?

[driver8]

50. He is the boy-king and is entitled to this celebration...

These guys can sleep at night because they don't give a shit about anyone else but themselves. 40 million dollars is a piss in the bucket to these guys...and besides, they aren't paying for it.

They truly believe that they are entitled to all of this. They "won" the election and to the victors go the spoils!!

[ze_dscherman]

61. Welcome to DU, muncyc!

:hi:

[GOPBasher]

32. More debt increase.

He couldn't ask for it BEFORE the election?

[truthisfreedom]

33. bush starts off his next 4 years verifying every single prediction Kerry

made during the debates, and bush denied. what a schmuck. running us right into the toilet while he robs the treasury, eliminates social security, and continues lying about every single little thing.

[PurityOfEssence]

34. Then howzabout puttin' it in a damned budget?

The three-card monte presidency strikes again...

[The_Casual_Observer]

35. Another supplemental?

No big deal, whats another 100 billion. Apparently, after they cooked the books, the last 200 billion had no effect and didn't matter. So why not go for a trillion and "get the job done" as the freepers say.

[saigon68]

36. "Lets kill a few more RAG-HEADS" shouted the Chimp

"I'm bored I want to see them die," he continued

[Skittles]

40. sick

indefensible

[CAcyclist]

41. Progressive taxation will pull us out of this mess

The repubs better watch out because as they sow, so shall they reap.

The only thing that will put this country back on an even financial keel by the time Bush is through with it will be to tax the rich. And this time, it won't be a paltry 3-4% increase in the top tax bracket.

90 % income tax brackets, wealth taxes, gas taxes, 50% - 90% taxes on capitol gains, inheritance taxes - that's the kind of taxation that will fix this mess.

[maxsolomon]

42. i tihnk hussein would have left office for 50 billion

and uday & kusay for 50 million.

[Be Brave]

43. OMG! This is what happens

when you try to buy a country which is not for sale!

[daleo]

44. It puts $150 million for tsunami relief into perspective.

Bush probably looks at the tsunami relief as a bargain price for the opportunity to reconnoiter new lands to invade.

On edit - I guess that should be $350 million, but I don't believe Bush anyway, so $150 million will probably be closer.

[Barrett808]

46. Even if * pledged $1 billion, it would be 1% of the new request for Iraq

For my protest sign this month:

$350 million to save Muslims in Indonesia
$100 billion to kill them in Iraq

[Barkley]

67. OUCH!

good one Barrett808!

[zann725]

45. Sometimes they have to 'go' with money they have, not money they'd like

Gimme...gimme...gimme.

[Lorien]

48. How about 100 billion for a national high speed rail project?

We could put thousands of Americans back to work by building a mag-lev high speed monorail system to connect every major city in America. It would cut down on our foreign oil dependency (far more than drilling in ANWR), add jobs and businesses (think of all the retail and restaurant possibilities around the stations?), decrease road congestion, increase tourism, plus light rail connections would keep the suburbs humming along...

what the hell am I thinking? How would Big Oil and Big Defense profit from such an undertaking? Aren't THEY who this nation truly serves?

[Ezlivin]

70. You are seriously warped

...just like me.

You are spot-on with your call for a national high speed rail project. It could do everything you listed and more.

Why don't they consider this?

Perhaps you are smarter than our leaders?

That's what I think. And I'd be laying rails alongside you if they ever decided to do the project.

[Lorien]

72. A project called for here in Florida

would have put slim monorails down the median strips of our freeways, thus avoiding much of an environmental or property impact from a high speed rail system. The mag-lev is nearly silent, too, and produces far fewer pollutants/ uses less energy than traditional rail systems. The people of Florida had the idea placed on the ballot for funding, and it got our overwhelming approval in 2002. Of course, Jeb, like his brother, bankrupted the state; so now the project won't be funded.

[Squeegee]

51. What percentage goes to Halliburton? n/t

[zann725]

63. Exactly! And what percentage of that will 'disapper' like before?

n/t

[poe]

52. gravy spills

real pentagon budget about 800 billion/yr. lost 4.3 T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N since fiscal 2000. worlds largest polluter spends 177 million/day to slaughter, i mean free, iraqis. whose doing the accounting? subsidiary of lockheed-martin-dyncorp etc. only sustained street protests will stop this madness. lives in the balance.

[jimshoes]

53. Welcome poe

You're right of course.

[NYC]

58. Does anyone remember war bonds?

I wonder how well this would go if it had to be financed by war bonds.

[aikido15]

60. Not well, I think...

[Bouncy Ball]

64. Guys!

Just start yourself up a fundie church then stick your hand out for all that money bush is handing out to fundie churches ($1 billion in 2003) for "faith-based" shit and then keep it for yourself like the people in the other fundie churches do!

Or better yet, turn around and funnel the money into progressive causes! ROFL!

This is sick. Anything bush says, assume the opposite. Remember when he said the OIL would pay for the war?

Sigh.

[Bouncy Ball]

65. This is the country I live in now:

You can tell a country's priorities by how and where they spend their money.

We spend tons and tons of money on the defense budget, new weapons systems, military (though the troops sure don't get paid tons and tons!), wars on people who did nothing to us, etc.

Over $1 billion to fundie churches (taxpayer money).

And what do schools get? A pittance. Leaky roofs, textbooks older than the kids using them, held together with tape and staples, teachers leaving the classroom all the time to find jobs for more pay and less stress, but who cares, right?

And what about health care? Well, if you live in America, you better have a job with damn good health insurance (good luck!) or you better just damn well take care of yourself!

My country now makes me hang my head.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

68. who said in 2002 that "this war would cost US taxpayers $400 BILLION?"

i remember some gov't and military officials saying $400 billion...and then bush* fired them and retired them...FUCK YOU GEORGE and your whole famn damily!!!


was it Paul O'Neal?

[FlyByNight]

69. The sheer waste of lives, money and common sense...

is simply breathtaking.

Every stated pretext for the Halliburton War proved false and/or lies. One-hundred thousand-plus Iraqis and 1300-plus US soldiers killed. And for what? Oil? Permanent bases on Iraqi soil? Flat-out imperialism? Such a fucking waste. :argh:

[jswordy]

71. Hell, we're running through...

$6 bil a day over there! I say, just directly hand the Iraqis $6 bil a day, and let them figure it out! Heh. Prolly be cheaper in the long run.

[pinniped]

74. By the time these assholes are done looting taxpayers...

413 billion will be half.