Congress Approves $162 Billion for Iraq, Afghanistan Wars

Congress gave concluding blessing to
legislation providing $162 billion for the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and
Afghanistan along with support for veteran soldiers and unemployment
benefits sought by Democrats.

The Senate voted 92-6 last nighttime to O.K. the spending
bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives last
week. It adjacent travels to President who have said he
will subscribe it.

The statute law allocates money for the warfares until mid-
2009, when Bush's replacement will be in office, and ends the 18-
month legislative conflict in which Shrub resisted Democratic
efforts to bind warfare support to demands for troop withdrawals.

''Congress have given the president everything he's asked
for'' on the war, said , senior policy analyst
for national security at the Heritage Foundation in Washington,
a policy grouping with stopping point neckties to the Republican Party.

Attempts by Democrats to coerce a backdown of U.S. troops
from Republic Of Iraq -- a cardinal issue in their successful 2006 campaign
to take control of both Chambers in United States Congress -- were thwarted by
Bush's veto pen or stymied in the Senate where the 51-49
Democratic bulk was not able to defeat Republican
opposition.

Other war-policy proposals, such as as setting political
benchmarks for the Iraki government, putting limitations on
U.S. question methods or limiting the length of troop
deployments either failed to win transition or were weakened to
allow Shrub to relinquish any requirements.

'Not About a Failure'

''This is not about a failure of the House of
Representatives,'' House Speaker said before
passage. ''It's about what we cannot acquire past the adjacent organic structure and
onto the adjacent president's desk.''

The disposal is claiming victory.

''We made no grants with respect to the supplemental
for our troops,'' White Person House Budget Director said. ''About Eighteen calendar months ago, the Democratic place was, take all of
the money and usage it to acquire out of Iraq.''

Democrats did win grants on domestic programs. The
legislation widens compensation and includes the
largest enlargement of veterans' benefits since World War II.

The unemployment compensation and veterans' benefits would
cost about $70 billion over the adjacent 11 years. Democrats also
added money for nutrient assistance and nutrient safety programs, along with
disaster finances that Shrub requested, bringing the measure's total
cost to about $187 billion over the adjacent year.

By tying their precedences to Republic Of Iraq spending, Democrats got a
victory ''bigger than any they've had before on domestic
issues,'' , a political man of science at the
University of Lone-Star State in Austin, said. ''The president did concede
more than he would have got in the past.''

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in American Capital at
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US Iraq commander tells Congress that Iraq is too fragile for further US troop pullouts soon

: The top U.S. commanding officer in Republic Of Iraq states in congressional testimony that hard-won additions in the warfare zone are too delicate to assure any troop disengagements beyond this summer, holding his land against impatient Democrats and refusing to perpetrate to more than backdowns before President Saint George W. Shrub go forths business office in January.

Army Gen. Saint David Petraeus painted a image Tuesday of a state struggling to stamp down force among its ain people and to travel toward the political rapprochement that Shrub said a twelvemonth ago was the ultimate purpose of a new Republic Of Iraq scheme that included sending more than than 20,000 other armed combat troops.

Security is getting better, and Iraq's ain military units are becoming more than able, Petraeus said. But he also ticked off a listing of grounds for worry, including the menace of a revival of Sunnite or Shi'Ite Moslem extremist violence. He highlighted Islamic Republic Of Iran as a particular concern, for its preparation and equipping of extremists.

In back-to-back appearances before two Senate committees, Petraeus was told by a parade of Democrats that, after five old age of war, it was past clip to turn over much more than of the warfare load to the Iraqis. Those senators said Republic Of Iraq will not achieve stableness until the United States make up one's minds to get withdrawing in big Numbers and military units the Iraqis to settle down their differences.

Republican Sen. Saint George Voinovich of Ohio, a longtime critic of the administration's warfare strategy, told Petraeus: "The American people have got had it up to here." Today in Americas

Petraeus responded, "I certainly share the frustration."

But when it came to promising or predicting a timetable for additional withdrawals, Petraeus would not budge. He said he had recommended to Shrub that he complete, by the end of July, the backdown of the 20,000 other troops. Beyond that, the general projected a 45-day time time period of "consolidation and evaluation," to be followed by an indefinite period of appraisal before he would urge additional pullouts.

The program gives Petraeus upper limit flexibleness at a clip of rising force in Bagdad and some other parts of the country. It runs counter to Democrats' pushing for a more than rapid decrease in the U.S. armed forces committedness and a faster transportation of duty to the Iraki government.

The hearing marked the start of two years of high-profile congressional visual aspects by Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. With the congressional and presidential elections in November, Democrats and Republicans were using the hearings to reason their opponent stances on the war. The two look Wednesday before commissions in the House of Representatives.

Among the senators making their lawsuit at Tuesday's hearings were the three presidential candidates: Republican Toilet McCain, who back ups keeping U.S. military personnel in Iraq, and Democrats Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who state they would convey soldiers home.

The Petraeus plan, which Shrub is expected to embrace, reflects a conservative attack that go forths of absence unfastened the possibility that roughly 140,000 U.S. military personnel could stay in Republic Of Iraq when the president leaves business office next year.

On Thursday Shrub will do a address about the war, now in its 6th year, and his determination about troop levels.

In exchanges with respective senators, Petraeus refused to state when he thought it would be safe to restart troop decreases beyond July without risking "fragile and reversible" security gains.

Asked Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, president of the Armed Services Committee: "Could that be a month, could that be two months?"

Petraeus began to respond: "Sir, it could be less than that. It could be. ..."

Levin: "Could it be more than than than that?"

Petraeus: "It could be more than that. Again, it's when the statuses are met that we can do a recommendation for additional reductions."

Levin: "Could it be three months?"

Petraeus: "Sir, again, at the end of the time period of consolidation and evaluation. ..."

On they went in that vein, even after a demonstrator — "Bring them home! Bring them home!" — interrupted the hearing and was escorted out.

When Sen. Evan Bayh, also a Democrat, started in again later, Petraeus said it would withstand logic to set up a timetable before knowing what statuses will be later this year.

"If you believe as I make — and the commanding officers on the land believe — that the manner forward on decreases should be conditions-based, then it is just level not responsible to seek to set down a interest in the land and state this is when it would be or that is when it would be," Petraeus said.

One of three senators who could be the new president by January, Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton, said much earlier, not in a response to Petraeus, that she disagreed with those who criticized lawmakers who are calling for an orderly withdrawal. 1 |

Op-ed's $3 trillion Iraq war estimate doubted by Pentagon

Washington (CNN) -- Shrub disposal functionaries Monday expressed uncertainty about an economist's column published over the weekend saying the warfare in Republic Of Iraq will be the United States more than $3 trillion.

U.S. soldiers purpose their rifles Monday behind a military vehicle during a patrol at Al-leg, Iraq.

That figure "seems manner out of the ballpark to me," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

"I'm not an accountant. I'm not an economist. And I believe that those who are have got questioned the methodological analysis of this peculiar survey," Morrell said.

The op-ed piece published in Sunday's American Capital Post was written by Chief Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Alfred Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia River University professor who served as president of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. The co-author was Linda J. Bilmes, a former head fiscal military officer at the Commerce Department who learns at Harvard University University's Jack Kennedy School of Government.

The two state the warfare is running a check of $12 billion a calendar month -- $16 billion including military action in . And, they maintain, the economical downswing resulting from it is likely to be the top since the Great Depression.

"That total, itself well in extra of $1 trillion, is not included in our estimated $3 trillion cost of the war," the column said. "Others will have got to work out the geopolitics, but the economic science here are clear. Ending the war, or at least moving rapidly to weave it down, would give major economical dividends." Don't Miss

Morrell said Monday the have cost the United States $406.2 billion through December 2007.

"I believe they [Stiglitz and Bilmes] throw everything in the kitchen sink into the survey, including the involvement on the national debt," he said. "So it looks like an overdone figure to us."

The warfares in Iraq, Islamic State Of Afghanistan and antiterrorist attempts abroad could be $2.4 trillion over the adjacent 10 years, according to an October 2007 estimation by the Congressional Budget Office. More than 70 percentage would travel to back up trading operations in Iraq, and the figure included the estimated $600 billion spent since 2001, Congressional Budget Office Director Simon Peter Orszag said in testimony before the House Budget Committee that month. That estimation also included projected interest, because the authorities is adoption most of the finances required.

Stiglitz and Blimes' op-ed said that because Shrub and United States Congress cut taxations after going to war, despite the monolithic deficit, the warfare had to be funded by more than borrowing.

"By the end of the Shrub administration, the cost of the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan plus the accumulative involvement on the increased adoption used to fund them, will have got added about $1 trillion to the national debt."

White Person House spokeswoman Danu Perino refused Monday to difference the Numbers contained in the piece.

"I don't cognize exactly where he acquires all of it," she said. "I believe that some of the things that he looks into in footing of veteran soldiers care, that we're going to take attention of our veteran soldiers in the hereafter -- absolutely, those types of things have got got to be included, but it's very difficult to anticipate, depending on statuses on the land and circumstances, how much the warfare is going to cost."

Modern equipment for U.S. soldiers, with engineering that salvages lives, is expensive, she noted.

"I don't believe anybody is arguing that our work force and women who are out there on the battleground shouldn't have entree to the MRAP [mine resistant ambuscade protected] vehicles," she said. "Those vehicles are very, very expensive. But they have got helped save lives and forestall injuries. And that's just one illustration of the many things that we are disbursement money on."

Morrell noted the Pentagon still have got a $105 billion warfare petition for Republic Of Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan pending in Congress.

"We here in this edifice are certainly doing our portion to seek to cipher as best we can, for the Congress, for the American people, what we believe this is going to cost, even as the United States United States United States Congress have failed to supply us with the money we necessitate to struggle the war," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Thomas Thomas Reid of Silver State also addressed the piece in his flooring comments on the budget Monday.

"Seven old age into the Shrub administration, taxation interruptions for large concern and the super-wealthy have combined with a $12 billion per calendar month warfare in Iraq and cuts to investings in our work force and substructure to make a budget shortage of more than than $400 billion and a national debt that have grown by $3 trillion," Reid said. "The result? An economic system that is failing billions of American families."

Bush Says Funding Iraq, Afghan Wars Is Congress's Top Priority

President Saint George W. Shrub said that
funding the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan should be Congress's
top precedence when it go backs to American Capital adjacent week, and he
lashed out at Democrats for not acting on his disbursement request.

''Continued hold in support our military personnel will soon get to
have a detrimental impact on the trading operations of our military,'' Bush
said in his weekly radiocommunication computer address today.

Congress, which go backs to work Dec. Three after a two-week
recess, hasn't acted on a $50 billion down payment on the $190
billion Shrub requested earlier this twelvemonth because the legislation
contains linguistic communication career for a troop backdown from Iraq. Senate Republicans have got blocked bulk Democrats from passing
the legislation, and Shrub have threatened to blackball any measure
that includes a backdown provision.

In response, Defense Secretary Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates have directed
the military service heads to begin planning for the layoff of
about 200,000 civilian employees and contractors by mid-February
if United States Congress doesn't O.K. a auxiliary support petition for
the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan before money runs out Dec. 14.

The threatened furlough is a first for the Pentagon, which
in March and last twelvemonth temporarily transferred money from the
annual budget into wartime disbursement until United States Congress passed all of
an exigency disbursement bill.

''It is clip for the United States Congress to make its occupation and give our
troops what they necessitate to protect America,'' Shrub said in his
radio address.

Shrub also called on United States Congress to update the foreign
intelligence surveillance act, base on balls statute law to prevent
middle-income families from being topic to higher levies under
the option lower limit tax, and to complete its work on annual
spending bills.

So far, United States Congress have approved just one of the 12 annual
appropriations measures that finances authorities operations. Democrats
are seeking to stop a budget fighting with Shrub by drafting a single
catch-all measurement that incorporates a littler addition in domestic
spending than they had previously demanded.

To reach the newsman on this story:
Holly Rosenkrantz in American Capital at