Bush Will Seek $87 Billion for Iraq

Reuters via Washington Post ^ | 9-7-03

[dogbyte12]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will announce on Sunday night that he plans to ask Congress for $87 billion to fund the U.S. military deployment in Iraq and pay for reconstruction, a Republican source said.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the money would fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and reconstruction over the coming budget year.

The figure includes assistance for Afghanistan. Bush was to make the request in an 8:30 p.m. EDT address to the nation, the source said.

The figure was at the high end of expectations. Some members of Congress said earlier they expected Bush to get what he asked for but wanted him to detail how long U.S. troops would remain in Iraq and outline a strategy for bringing them home. (snip)

[VetsRule]

And on one September morning, two years ago, a handfull of mad criminals cost our economy 1 trillion dollars.

That's right. And if we wanted to stop Islamism in its tracks, we should've gone after Afghanistan (which we did), Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (both of whom we coddle), not mostly secular Iraq.

Sorry if I sound pissed off, I'm just sick of my tax dollars going to really low-priority adventures.

VR

[Conservababe]

They are going to join OPEC dreamer.

Are you serious? Read between the lines. Rebuilding Iraq will take "as long as it takes". LOL

[VetsRule]

They are going to sell their oil and we will benefit.

If that was ALL we cared about, we could've done so a long time ago by lifting the sanctions. That's not something I supported, but I sure as hell don't support this idiocy, either. By the way, the constant pipeline sabotage is going to make it a wee bit tough to get any oil out of Iraq.

Also, we must remember that we needed a military base in that area and now we have one.

We already had two: Saudi Arabia (there's no way they could've kicked us out, unless we'd wanted to leave) and Qatar.

Too bad old Saddam could not control himself from getting in this mess by invading Kuwait.

Ancient history. We already kicked his ass out good.

I am awed by George Bush.

So am I. I'm awed that anyone could spend so much of our money on such stupid BS.

VR

[Sparta]

Yes, indeed, more business in government in a land without USA restrictions may just give that tax boost needed to reduce the deficit.

I don't know, I haven't heard anything about the Coalition trying to abolish Saddam's Marxist restrictions.

[VetsRule]

One country had to come first.

Well sure. So of course we choose the weakest threat while the others have more time to develop more and more nukes.

Makes perfect sense to me.

VR

[cookcounty]

"President Bush said that Saddam HAD WMD, not that he was capable of them."

The short list of those who said that "Saddam HAD WMD, not that he was capable of them,'" includes:

Bill Clinton
Maddie Albright
Al Gore
Joe Lieberman
Joe Biden
The UNITED NATIONS
The unanimous NATO membership.

However, Noam " millions will die in Afghanistan" Chomsky has spoken from the Mount Olympus in his own brain, so must be that settles it.

[VetsRule]

If we had invaded Saudi Arabia, with American tanks entering Mecca and Medina, Islamism would have been greatly strengthened.

Well, that would have depended on how we did it. There are ways to overthrow governments other than tanks rolling through Mecca.

Pakistan is geographically isolated.

Last I checked, Pakistan has an outlet to the sea.

Now Iran and North Korea are, too.

Last I checked, THEY have outlets to the sea, too.

And Arab fascism, which was strengthened by default when we defeated the Taliban, has been mortally wounded.

Saddam was more of a socialist than a fascist, but regardless, he was definitely more secular than Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia AND Iran.

If Iraq is such a "low-priority adventure", why are the terrorists and socialists so eager to disrupt us there?

I don't understand you people who seem to believe in the "draw them all to Iraq" thing. Sure, OBL and his boys send a few cadres to Iraq to mix it up. I don't see anything indicating those cadres constitute all of the terrorists, however, or even close.

Meanwhile, more terrorists are born each day in Iraq.

VR

[ScrtAccess]

If Iraq is such a "low-priority adventure", why are the terrorists and socialists so eager to disrupt us there? Ummm...because they live there maybe and don't care for our ways? I wouldn't help/support a foreign county that came to liberate me. I don't support everything our govt does, but helping a foreigner take over my country is certainly out of the question. So why is it so hard to believe that the Iraqis may be patriotic to their country as well (however misguided)?

[VetsRule]

You are not analyzing the situation clearly. A nuclear terrorist threat is the product of more than the amount of nuclear weapons held.

Oh please, enlighten me. Is it the nuclear part, or the terrorist part? Oh yeah, I forgot, Iraq is down at #4 or #5 on EACH of those lists.

Makes perfect sense to me.

VR

[Conservababe]

We already had two: Saudi Arabia (there's no way they could've kicked us out, unless we'd wanted to leave) and Qatar.

So where would we go when we have to kick Saudi Arabia's butt? Not Qatar.

[VetsRule]

So where would we go when we have to kick Saudi Arabia's butt? Not Qatar.

I'm sure that between Qatar, carrier groups and Israel we would have no problem with Saudi Arabia. Remember, this is the country that was scared of IRAQ...and look what we did to them.

VR

[VetsRule]

I didn't say "draw them all to Iraq", I said they were eager to disrupt us there. If they fail to dislodge us, we will win a round against them, because their stated aim is to disrupt us.

I'd rather root them out at the source, than play defense in a situation like this for a non-critical objective. I'd rather not play their game at all.you people

You mean FReepers?

Ha ha. No, I mean the subset of Freepers who believe in this "draw them all to Iraq so we can kill all of them" nonsense.

You're quoting from A.N.S.W.E.R. talking points.

Yeah, whatever. We're not making many friends in Iraq right now, regardless of what you might really really want to believe.

VR

[cookcounty]

Bush playing sly fox with the numbers?

This doesn't add up. $66 billion to keep 130,000 troops deployed and active? That's nuts:

It adds up to OVER $500,000 per individual!! Bear in mind:....

A. The military is not adding personnel, so their salaries had to be paid anyway. All they get extra is Haz duty pay, TDY pay, combat pay---and that doesn't add up to a whole lot.

B. They had to be fed, housed, clothed anyway.

C. Sure they burn fuel and ammo, but in the "policing" phase that their in, is it markedly more than what they would have spent on training and exercises anyway?

D. Deployment. Had we got everything we wanted at the UN, and Saddam had collapsed without an invasion, we STILL would have had to pay for sending all these units over there, and returning them home again.

Maybe W is accepting the "Common Wisdom" on this, and then will turn around at election time and show how much he "saved" on the whole program, when "everybody" agreed it would cost "at least" $87 billion.