Bush Asks Congress to Shift $3.2 Billion to Support Iraq Troops

[babylonsister]

:banghead: :banghead:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avzS2PcdHmD8&refer=home

Bush Asks Congress to Shift $3.2 Billion to Support Iraq Troops

By Roger Runningen

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush asked Congress to revise his emergency spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay for as many as 4,400 more troops to support the deployment of additional combat forces.

The president, in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said he wants to redirect $3.2 billion within the $93 billion supplemental spending request for this fiscal year to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Bush's National Security Council.

The additional troops, on top of 21,500 soldiers and Marines Bush previously announced he would send to Iraq, would be designated to help with detainees captured during security sweeps and other support roles, Johndroe said. The extra force was requested by General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq.

``The number of people going into detention will increase, and so these military policy forces will be for that,'' Johndroe told reporters in Montevideo, Uruguay, during Bush's trip to Latin America.

The request may add a new complication to the debate over Bush's troop deployment in Congress. Pelosi and House Democrats are struggling to agree on legislation opposing Bush's Iraq policy and his plan to add more troops. They are considering adding a provision that would force the administration to adopt a withdrawal deadline to a measure providing for the supplemental funding.

Afghanistan

As part of the change Bush is seeking, $482 million would be shifted to pay for more troops and intelligence support in Afghanistan and for counter-terrorism programs in Pakistan, according to a breakdown by the Office of Management and Budget. It also would direct $100 million to restart factories in Iraq. The spending would be offset by trimming other parts of the request.

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[panader0]

1. At what point, when you are making a terrible mistake,

do you admit it and move on? When my daughter was 3 years old she put her hand on the wood stove. She pulled it off immediately and I applied aloe vera to the burn. Was it Pete Seeger who sang "Waist deep in the big muddy and the old fool says push on"?
Get out now, apologize profusely, help reconstruct, and elect a human being to the White House.

[babylonsister]

2. I agree with your sentiments. Unreal; I hope the Dems raise a stink. nt

[BayCityProgressive]

6. and just think

if your daughter was Busha nd you were a present day Democrat...you would have told her it really isn't a good idea to burn her hand but if that's what she wants to do you don't really have the power to stop her..even though you hate it.:)

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. No. You've had enough cookies and you'll spoil your dinner.

Seriously. I feel like we're dealing with a little kid.

[babylonsister]

4. If it was that easy, he'd be long gone. Why he's still

there baffles me. :-(

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Why doesn't he just steal if from the Afghan war budget, like he did the first time? nt

[babylonsister]

7. The money trail is not a trail at all. These people have FUBARed

us, our country, and the money. There is not trail, it's just gone - poof!
I love Waxman for trying to make sense of it but wonder if that will ever happen.