AP: Bush to Seek $80B for Iraq, Afghan Wars

[spurster]

I guess we can look forward to hitting that trillion dollar mark. We can only hope the new Iraqi government will kick us out.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/inte...-Spending.html

January 24, 2005
Bush to Seek $80B for Iraq, Afghan Wars
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:42 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration plans to announce Tuesday it will request about $80 billion more for this year's costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides said Monday.

The request would push the total provided so far for those wars and for U.S. efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion since the first money were provided shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The package will not formally be sent to Congress until after President Bush introduces his 2006 budget on Feb. 7. But the aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said White House budget chief Joshua Bolten or other administration officials would describe the spending request publicly Tuesday.

Until now, the White House had not been expected to reveal details of the war package until after the budget's release.

The decision to do so earlier comes after congressional officials argued to the administration that withholding the war costs from Bush's budget would open the budget to criticism that it was an unrealistic do ent. Last year, the spending plan omitted war expenditures and received just that critique.

Adding additional pressure, the Congressional Budget Office planned to release a semi-annual report on the budget Tuesday that was expected to include a projection of war costs. Last September, the nonpartisan budget office projected the 10-year costs of the wars at $1.4 trillion at current levels of operations, and $1 trillion if the wars were gradually phased down.

[JoeChalupa]

what...no comments?

I guess we all knew it was going to cost us. Nothing more needs to be said.