Bush seeks $50 billion more for war

WASHINGTON – President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for as much as $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said Tuesday, a move that appears to reflect increasing White House confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request – which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.

Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last.

Some consideration is being given to trimming the new request by a few billion dollars, the White House official said. But, he added, “this is pretty close to a done deal.” Almost all the spending is relatively noncontroversial, he added, with the vast majority of it necessary just to keep the U.S. military operating in Iraq. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters, said that the supplemental requests are likely to be “rolled together” and considered as one package.

The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week. The bill also covers the far smaller costs of the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said recently that the cost of the Iraq war has surpassed $330 billion, while the war in Afghanistan has totaled $78 billion.

“We have said previously that after General Petraeus reports, we will be evaluating what adjustments may need to be made to our pending (fiscal 2008) supplemental request, which was sent up in February with the rest of the budget,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Tuesday night. “I’m going to decline to speculate on this, as General Petraeus has not testified.”