Bush sends new Iraq budget request to U.S. Congress

[maddezmom]

Bush sends new Iraq budget request to U.S. Congress
10 Mar 2007 19:37:13 GMT

MONTEVIDEO, March 10 (Reuters) - It will cost about $3 billion to send extra U.S. troops to Iraq in support of the 21,500 already being deployed under President George W. Bush's reworked war strategy, the White House said on Saturday.

U.S. President George W. Bush sent House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, a letter revising a $100 billion request for funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This revised request would better align resources based on the assessment of military commanders to achieve the goal of establishing Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic and secure nations that are free of terrorism," Bush said in his letter.

He signed it Friday night and released it on Saturday while on a Latin America tour.

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the overall budget request has not changed.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10283593.htm

pdf link to budget
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/amendments/amendment_3_9_07.pdf

[maddezmom]

1. Pelosi Statement on Bush Veto Threat of Military Funding Bill

Pelosi Statement on Bush Veto Threat of Military Funding Bill
Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today on President Bush's threat to veto the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act:

"President Bush’s Iraq policies weaken our military’s readiness, dishonor our nation’s promises to our veterans, and fail to hold the Iraqi government accountable for overdue reforms.

"By threatening to veto the House's military funding bill, the President is walking away from his promise to the American people. The President has vowed to veto a bill that contains his own reform benchmarks for performance by the Iraqi government, our Defense Department’s own standards for troop readiness, and America's promise to our veterans.

"With his veto threat, the President offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.

"The House of Representatives will soon have a chance to choose a new direction for the American people. The bill the President dismisses out of hand will measure the Iraqi government's actions by the standards Mr. Bush himself set, conforms deployment of our troops to existing military standards for readiness, and provides badly needed help to an overburdened military and veterans’ medical system wracked by scandal."

http://speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=0096