Irak 72

Het Irakese verzet laat de Amerikanen letterlijk en figuurlijk doodbloeden. De Washington Post bericht: 'Projected Iraq War Costs Soar. Total spending is likely to more than double, analysis finds. The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week. The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure. Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $102 billion this fiscal year, up from $87 billion in 2005, $77 billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, congressional analysts said. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. "The costs are exceeding even the worst-case scenarios," said Rep. John Spratt (S.C.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Such cost estimates may be producing sticker shock on Capitol Hill. This year, the wars will consume nearly as much money as the departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security combined, a total that is more than a quarter of this year's projected budget deficit. Yesterday, as the Senate debated a $106.5 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ongoing hurricane relief, 59 senators voted to divert $1.9 billion from President Bush's war-funding request to pay for new border patrol agents, aircraft and some fencing at border crossings widely used by illegal immigrants. When some Democrats said the move would take money from needed combat funds, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the bill's sponsor, called the criticism "pure poppycock."
In another challenge to Bush, the Senate voted by a veto-proof margin, 72 to 26, to shelve an amendment that would have struck spending on all items - from farm drought assistance to a $700 million measure to move a Mississippi railroad away from the Gulf Coast - not requested by the administration. The White House has threatened to veto the bill if it much exceeds the $92.2 billion Bush requested in February.' Lees verder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042601601.html Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042706M.shtml