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★阿修羅♪
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もしブッシュが追加資金を請求しなければ、米軍は、9月末日でイラクとアフガニスタンでの軍事資金を使い果たす。
Sunherald
http://www.sunherald.com/
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/7922351.htm
Posted on Tue, Feb. 10, 2004
Officials: Mideast military funding to run out
By DREW BROWN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The U.S. military will run out of money for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of September unless President Bush asks for additional funds, top military officials acknowledged Tuesday.
Because the Bush administration's $401.7 billion fiscal 2005 defense budget contains no money for Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed services will be forced to pay for operations in the two countries with money that's supposed to be used for modernization and other items.
"I am concerned ... how we bridge the gap between the end of this fiscal year and whenever we could get a supplemental (spending bill) in the next year," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "And I don't have an answer for exactly how we would do that."
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper echoed Schoomaker's concerns. Only Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, said he didn't anticipate the need for additional funds. Since the end of the war, the Navy has had fewer personnel committed to Iraq than other services.
The cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq has been controversial. Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz predicted that Iraq's vast oil wealth would finance its reconstruction soon after Saddam Hussein's ouster.
Last year, however, Congress approved two administration requests totaling nearly $166 billion to finance the war and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Several lawmakers have accused the administration of trying to hide the true costs of the Iraq war by not including operational money for Iraq in the fiscal 2005 budget. Last week, Joshua Bolten, the White House budget director, told reporters that a supplemental spending bill for Iraq could run as high as $50 billion.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to send a request to Congress "as soon as possible." "The United States military faces a severe funding problem," Reed said.
In a Pentagon briefing later on Tuesday, Rumsfeld told reporters that the military services would use money from other programs to pay for Iraq operations until the next supplemental spending bill is passed.
Schoomaker said the Army is spending about $3.7 billion a month for operations in Iraq and $900 million a month for Afghanistan. There are about 130,000 troops in Iraq and 12,000 in Afghanistan, most of them Army. Hagee said the Marine Corps, which is sending 25,000 people to Iraq beginning later this month, would need about $1.5 billion for operations there through the end of the year.
Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a staunch administration defender, also asked the four military chiefs whether they had any doubts about the intelligence they were given before the war. Three said they still support the decision to go to war, in spite of questions being raised about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time U.S. troops invaded.
Hagee, who commanded the First Marine Expeditionary Force during the war, said he "was absolutely convinced" by available prewar intelligence that Saddam possessed chemical and possibly biological weapons and intended to use them as soon as U.S. troops crossed into southern Iraq.
"I'm happy that I was wrong on that," said Hagee. "But looking back on the intelligence that we had at that particular time, there is nothing different that I would do, even having perfect vision looking back."
Clark read parts of a letter that he sent to Rumsfeld the morning the war started.
"For some, this is about WMD," he said. "For others, this is about al-Qaida. For us, it's about all of that and more. Iraq has been shooting at our aircraft for over five years," he said, adding that he told Rumsfeld he believed the war was just.
"Mr. Chairman, that was my position then, and that's what I believe today," he said.
Jumper said he also believed Saddam possessed stockpiles of the illicit weapons and thought the war should have been waged.
Schoomaker, who wasn't on active duty at the time, didn't address the issue.
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