A Hostage Situation: PAUL KRUGMAN - Iraq Funding

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A Hostage Situation

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 23, 2007

In response to a confrontation over financing for the Iraq surge, President Bush is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders.

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”

At one level, this is like the behavior of an irresponsible adolescent who repeatedly runs through his allowance, each time calling his parents to tell them he’s broke and needs extra cash.

...

...Mr. Bush’s refusal to face up to the failure of his Iraq adventure, his apparent determination to spend the rest of his term in denial, has become a clear and present danger to national security.

--MORE--

Yes, Congressman, I Do Have a Problem With That

by Robert Higgs

Ho-hum. Members of Congress are busying themselves with their usual dishonest tricks, looting the taxpayers and proudly taking credit for their crimes.

According to USA Today ("Farm Aid Plumps Up Iraq Funding," March 22), House Democrats have loaded the emergency-spending bill for the Iraq war―a crime in its own right―with $3.7 billion in benefits for farm interests that support Democrats. In the minds of these devoted public servants, "supporting the troops" furnishes an apt occasion for enriching peanut, spinach, and milk producers, among others.

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), who proudly calls himself "the peanut congressman," makes no apologies for allocating $74 million of the taxpayer's money to the glorious cause of paying storage fees for peanut growers. This largess constitutes a suitable payoff, it seems, for the reported $35,750 that peanut interests contributed to Bishop's last campaign.

Likewise, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) does not hang his head when called to account for the $25 million in taxpayer dollars he helped direct to spinach growers "to offset losses from last fall's E. coli contamination." After all, how were those spinach farmers to know that crops sometimes become contaminated with germs―you don't think that sort of thing has ever happened before, do you? Surely the reported $30,600 that Rep. Farr received from spinach interests in his last campaign had nothing to do with his actions in committee. The suggestion that he is a special-interest prostitute is impolite, however true it might be.

House appropriations committee chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) understands instinctively that the United States can't win the war in Iraq without a solid phalanx of milk producers to back up the troops. This tactical concern probably explains the reported $252 million for additional milk subsidies that somehow found its way into the bill Obey's committee brought forth. Any intimation that the congressman is a mere highwayman for the milk interests would be rude, except that Obey himself affirms its truth without shame. "I represent dairy farmers," he declares. "You got a problem with that?"

"Every time there is a disaster on the farming front, the federal government provides assistance," Obey declares. "This is no different than what's been done for the last 50 years." Think about that statement. For fifty years running―actually, it's closer to ninety, in one way or another―members of Congress have been extorting money from citizens on pain of fines and imprisonment in order to enrich farmers who've never learned that farming is risky. Mythology apart, when it comes to actually bearing the risk, the farmer's slogan has long been "better you than me, pal," and the agribusiness lackeys in Congress make sure that not a blade of wheat wilts without eliciting generous taxpayer compensation.

So, for a mere $113,000 reportedly directed to Rep. Obey by the milk interests since 1989, the agro-bandits get back this year alone a handsome return of $252 million, not to mention the other stupendous amounts of booty they've raked in from time immemorial. You and I can only dream of investments that return such gorgeous profits. Scientific, technological, and economic innovation be damned, I say. If we really want to get rich with no risk at all, we must invest in a congressman or two.

Punctilious observers may protest that the Constitution gives Congress no power to take my money and give it to farmer Jones. Unfortunately, the wise men of the Supreme Court have sensed emanations and penumbras of pesticide, herbicide, and livestock dung hovering above the sacred document. In decisions such as Wickard v. Filburn (317 U.S. 111 [1942]), the mandarins in black robes have placed their stamp of approval on transparent piracy, justifying it with some of the most palpably sophistical pseudo-rationalizations ever written down. This disgraceful judicial "reasoning" really must be seen to be believed. Don't take my word for it; look it up.

The whole government gang―legislative, executive, and judicial―is clearly in on the crime, so the criminals themselves have nothing to fear from the powers that be. Indeed, the criminals and the powers are one and the same.

Which makes you and me what? Accessories to a crime, for electing these criminals? Chumps, for supinely putting up with what they do? Too busy with work, daily life, and family problems to notice that a large amount of our earnings is being deducted for such disgusting "public" purposes as taking from Peter and giving to Paul―a Paul who has no more right to the money than a dark-alley mugger?

To me, the matter seems all too plain: I've been robbed, you've been robbed, and the robbers remain cheerfully on the loose.

March 24, 2007

Robert Higgs [send him mail] is senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. His most recent book is Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy. He is also the author of Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11 and Against Leviathan.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

Tap Dancing on Graves: “Antiwar” Democrats Supplemental Buys the War

March 19, 2007

“We don’t have the votes,” intones David Obey as he shepherds though the House the supplemental spending bill that provides another $100 billion or so for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obey’s protestations to antiwar protesters are an understandable figleaf covering his continued support for the war. After all, he has voted in favor of all prior supplemental spending bills, excepting the October 2003 bill which actually included funds for reconstruction purposes in Iraq.

Of course, Obey, Murtha, et. al. offer the benefit of “oversight”. With the Democrats back in power, Congress will provide “oversight” to this war while tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. soldiers continue to be killed.

What did oversight net the antiwar movement in this supplemental spending bill? The Democrats appropriated more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than was requested by President Bush. This year, for these wars alone, the U.S. will spend $81 billion for Operations & Maintenance for the armed services compared to $59 billion last year. Where is the oversight when spending in this category increases by 37 percent in one year? This is the same category of spending that has raised eyebrows at the Congressional Research Service and Government Accountability Office because a quarter of the spending is accounted for as “miscellaneous” or “other” expenses.

Far more disturbing, however, is the manner in which erstwhile House progressives with long records opposing the war are falling into lockstep behind the Democratic party’s leadership. Jose Serrano set the stage last Thursday at the hearing of the House Appropriations Committee when he announced that he will vote in favor of the war funds. Serrano had consistently voted against war funding measures.

Ditto for Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. At a meeting on March 17 with local social justice advocates, Schakowsky announced that she will in fact vote in favor of the supplemental spending bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee. This comes despite representations from her office on January 29, during a lobbying visit, that Schakowsky would “absolutely not” vote for a supplemental spending bill.

Schakowsky’s support for the Iraq war funding bill also comes despite her protestations at a March 8 press conference of the Progressive Caucus that:

“Four and a half years ago, the president asked Congress to give war a chance. And despite our objections, he got that chance and he blew it. No more chances, no more waivers, no phony certifications, no more spending billions of dollars to send our children into the meat grinder that is Iraq. It is time to spend the money to keep them safe and bring them home.”

Now, mind you, the above statement came on the same day that the House Leadership team of Pelosi, Obey, Murtha and Hoyer were publicly rolling out the outline of the Democrats’ war funding bill.

Nine days later, Schakowsky is on board with continuing to fund the war for at least another 18 months, until September 2008.

The political calculations are crass—and utterly misguided. Schakowsky, Serrano and others who voted against war funding in the past are making a colossal error in judgment. They are willing to use their vote on a gambit which is certain to fail, the gambit being that the timetable for withdrawal will be included in the final version of the bill.

It is highly improbable that the terms and conditions for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq which are contained in the House version of the bill will ever become law. Two significant obstacles exist—the Senate and the President.

As with most bills, the Senate is certain to pass a different version of the supplemental spending bill than that passed by the House. Almost certainly, the Senate version will not include the withdrawal timetable contained in the House version. The bill then goes to a conference committee, which consists of members of the House and the Senate. This committee develops the final version of the supplemental spending bill, which then is subject to a straight up or down vote in both the House and the Senate.

Even Obey acknowledges that it is highly improbable that the withdrawal timetable will survive the conference committee. Schakowsky, in her meeting with constituents, also acknowledged that the final bill to be voted on will most probably not contain the House language on withdrawal.

Perhaps then the erstwhile “antiwar” Democrats will attempt to salve their conscience by voting against the final version of the supplemental spending bill. But, absent the withdrawal timetable, the final conference committee version of the bill will easily garner majority support in the House and Senate. Schakowsky, Serrano and others will be able to state that they voted against the supplemental spending bill even though by voting in favor this week they create the preconditions for the bill’s ultimate passage. Anyone remember John Kerry’s infamous “I voted for it before I voted against it” statement of 2004?

But let’s engage in fantasy world for the time being and dream that the House supplemental spending bill survives with all of its conditions and timetables for withdrawal. Erik Leaver of the Institute for Policy Studies estimates that 40,000 to 60,000 troops could potentially remain in Iraq under the terms of the supplemental spending bill, including 6,000 to 10,000 trainers; 15,000 to 20,000 “counter terrorist forces”, in particular in Anbar province; and 5,000 to 20,000 troops for protecting the embassy, diplomats and potentially areas in which the State Department’s “provisional reconstruction teams” operate. He notes that this estimate does not include private contractors who would remain in Iraq.

What this maneuvering by Pelosi, Obey and their minions really comes down to is crass political calculations. Conveniently, September 8, 2008—the date set for the withdrawal from Iraq to be completed—is the first Saturday following Labor Day. Labor Day traditionally marks the start of the fall election season.

The Democrats are dancing on the graves of Iraqi citizens and U.S. soldiers with their crass political calculations. Fund the war this year. Fund the war with another $142 billion next year. Make false promises of a withdrawal by the start of the election season in 2008. Run as antiwar candidates. And tap dance your way to the electoral season—no matter how many lives are lost along the way.

Categories: Supplemental Spending Bill

By Jeff Leys

Democrats Beginning to Pay a Political Price for Failing to End the War

March 10, 2007

By Kevin Zeese

It is no longer enough to oppose the war, now it is time to end it

Tina Richards son, Cloy, is a corporal in the U.S. Marines. He is facing his third tour of duty in Iraq. He and his mother oppose the war. Ms. Richards is living in Maryland lobbying Congress to end the war. She has joined Maryland voters who are occupying the office of Maryland’s senior senator, Barbara Mikulski.

Tina saw Sen. Mikulski leaving a hearing recently going to the women’s room. She followed her and mentioned that protesters were occupying her office to protest the war. Mikulski said she did not understand why they were protesting her saying “I voted against the war.” Tina answered “That is no longer enough.”

She’s right. Now, as we approach the fourth anniversary of the war it is time for the Congress to end it. Senator Barbara Mikulski, like most Democrats, has been a critic of President Bush, describing him as a reckless and irresponsible commander in chief. But she has voted to give this reckless commander in chief more than $420 Billion, as have almost all Democrats.

That is the problem – Democrats like Mikulski say they are opposed to the war but keep appropriating more money for the war. They need to realize that if they pay for it, it’s theirs.

Maryland voters have occupied the office of Senator Mikulski twice so far in what will be a series of efforts to convince Mikulski to lead efforts to end the Iraq War. At the second occupation Sen. Mikulski had four of her constituents arrested after they occupied her offices for three hours placing photographs of all the Maryland soldiers who had died around her office, and reading the names of soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war. (Links to videos of the two occupations are at the bottom of this article.)

Her constituents are holding Sen. Mikulski accountable for her actions. When she votes to fund the war she is putting U.S. troops in harms way and adding to the quagmire of the Iraq War. If Mikluski votes for this next supplemental she will be sending under-trained troops with inadequate equipment and an unclear purpose into an unwinnable quagmire. Real support for the troops requires more than criticizing Bush, it requires acting to remove the troops from harms way.

It would take only 41 votes to stop the war in the U.S. Senate. A filibuster of Iraq funding would not even require all of the 51 Democrats in the Senate to support it in order to succeed. If the Senate filibustered the president’s $99 billion request it could then pass an alternative that would really support the troops by bringing them home safely, reduce the violence in Iraq by providing funds to allow Iraqis to re-build their own country and underwrite a regional peace keeping force. If this exit were combined with a diplomatic surge in the region the U.S. could bring greater stability to the Middle East. Those steps would restore U.S. leadership and prevent further U.S. and Iraqi casualties. This approach would also save tax payers tens of billions of dollars in 2007 alone.

The Iraq war has resulted in more than 50,000 U.S. casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, but it has also cost more than $420 billion, $8.8 billion of which has been paid for by Mikulski’s constituents – Maryland’s taxpayers. This comes at a time when our citizens cannot afford health care, school systems are failing and there is an affordable housing crisis. What could that $8.8 billion have bought for Maryland? Four million children could have received a full year of health insurance, more than 122,000 public school teachers could have been hired, 342,000 students could have received four year scholarships to public universities or 63,000 public housing units could have been built. (Link below to find out what the Iraq War has cost your community.)

Sadly, Senator Mikulski’s voting record forces us to ask whether her inconsistent position – voting to fund the war while saying she opposes it – are because of campaign contributions. To date, she’s received $369,000 in contributions from the defense industry and her third and fourth largest campaign donors are Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Further, she received more than $362,000 from the hard right Israeli lobby that supported the Iraq War and currently supports military action against Iran.

Her funding reflects the funding of the Democratic Party. The Defense industry has donated $110.6 million in campaign contributions since 1990, $43.7 million to Democrats. And, the pro-Israel lobby has donated $55.2 million, $37.4 to Democrats.

Is the conflict between the interests of their donors and the views of their voters who oppose the war making it difficult for Democrats like Sen. Mikulski to take action to end the war?

In a sign of how widespread support is for ending the war – polls show a majority of Americans want troops out within the year as do the vast majority of soldiers. Jean Athey one of those arrested in Sen. Mikulski’s office reported a policeman stopped by to talk while they were incarcerated. He said, “Anyone who thinks that the war is wrong and people are being killed needlessly, has a moral imperative to do everything in their power to stop it.” And, on one of the van trips the prisoners saw some police standing outside, one of them, an African-American policeman, came over and gave them a power salute. At first, Jean was not sure of his intent. Then, he said to them, “I really respect what you guys are doing.”

When I was in law school, then Congresswoman Mikulski co-sponsored a bill I was working on regarding the advertising and labeling of contraceptives. I want the old Barbara Mikulski back – one who was more consistent and reflected her values. That Barbara Mikulski would say to President Bush – “Not one more dime, not one more death for your reckless war. It is time to support the troops by bringing them home.”

Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising ( www.DemocracyRising.US ) and a founder of VotersForPeace.US.

For more information:

Videos of the occupation of Senator Mikulski’s office are at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=165649651173410173&hl=en (this is the second occupation that results in the arrests of four of her constituents, it is 9 minutes long).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4819300510808318190&hl=en (this is the first occupation, it is 12 minutes long).

The Mikulski action is part of a nationwide campaign to end the occupation. Visit the Occupation Project at http://vcnv.org/project/the-occupation-project to see similar actions occurring around the United States and to join this effort.

To get information about what the Iraq War is costing us at the national, state and local levels visit: www.CostOfWar.com a project of the National Priorities Project.

Tina Richards website is http://grassrootsamerica4us.org/.

Bush has lots of money for terrorists

Lots of money for 'terrorists' (resistance fighters from Iraq's point of view). As far as US stated goals, this is just one more impeachable offence in the dossier of Bush-Cheney crimes.

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The Last Word by Don Williams: Lots of money for terrorists

Submitted by KnoxViews on Thu, 2007/03/01 - 12:31pm.

Lots of money for terrorists
by Don Williams

One of the unimpeachable truths about our unimpeachable president is that he’s providing lots of money to terrorists, most recently to Sunnis linked to al-Qaeda.

This is the point at which readers of a certain stripe will shake their heads and start calling for mine. Maybe one in ten will double-check my source--famed journalist Seymour Hersh’s latest article in the New Yorker, or his interview with CNN’s Wolf Blizter last Sunday. If you watched, you heard Hersh say something that should’ve been banner headlines. But then, what’s the fate of the Middle East compared to Anna Nicole.

Click here to continue reading...

Still, it’s worth noting that Bush is “pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight" into "three Sunni jihadist groups… connected to al Qaeda," in order to stop the Shiites, Hersh said.

A few of those critics mentioned above will consider Hersh’s considerable evidence and reputation and begin to experience cognitive dissonance as they try to square their brand of patriotism, which borders on religious faith, with the reality of how high priests of that faith—Bush, Cheney, Rush, Hannity, Coulter, O’Reilly, etc.--consistently operate, rather like dogs in a dog-eat-dog world. For some, this cognitive dissonance will hold the seed of understanding. And that seed will grow and mature into a better, more complex and ultimately more beautiful conception of the world. Experience has taught me that most, however, will fall back behind the circled wagons of their much simpler dogma:

America is good. Terrorists are evil. Our president is the leader of the Worldwide War on Terror, so he’s obviously good. People who criticize him are therefore lying or twisting the facts.

They will distract themselves from the circular nature of this logic by taking the offensive--mostly by calling me and Hersh and other people names.

Such reactions are to be expected from people who have been spoon-fed patriotic pablum for so long they can scarcely conceive of a more complex world. And let’s face it, that’s what most people dine on. Most long ago dismissed Hersh’s other scoops—the horror of My Lai during the Vietnam War, the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Few even heard of Hersh’s most damning story--that forces under control of the Bush administration not only helped members of al-Qaeda slip the noose at Tora Bora but that bin Laden and much of the hated Taliban were ushered out by our ally Pakistan while we cleared a zone of escape to the Afghanistan border. So why should we expect they would’ve heard how we’re providing funds for Sunnis linked to al-Qaeda?

People who’ve paid attention from the moment Bush and his friends stole the 2000 election—I’ll present the overwhelming evidence for this widely held opinion in a later column, promise--will not find Hersh’s new revelations surprising.

Funding both al-Qaeda and their Shiite enemies is in a long, grand tradition of secret funding of terrorists. Just consider the Iran-Contra intrigues of the 1980s or our government’s secret double dealing during the Iran-Iraq War, when we provided aerial targeting maps to Iraq while selling anti-aircraft weapons to Iran (Newsweek, Nov. 20). How cynical is that?

Starting in 2000, Bush began plucking perpetrators of such actions from the shadows and installing them in his administration, something I can easily demonstrate and promise to come back to.

Of course, even without their help, Bush has funded lots of terrorists, deliberately or not. Consider the rabbit hole of incompetence, graft and unaccountability down which billions have flowed, like the $12 billion that was flown into Baghdad early in the war and distributed from pallets--no receipts required--according congressional hearings earlier this month. Probably tens of billions have been squandered on failed public works projects. Much of that money wound up in the hands of Shiites, who tend not to be linked to al-Qaeda, after all—though many are linked to death squads now ravaging Sunni populations in Iraq.

Then there are the billions that Americans in over-sized cars have essentially paid to Saudis over the past decades. Yes, yes, I know, most of our oil comes from elsewhere, but in the global economy that’s a distinction without a difference. Some of this money no doubt, ends up financing Wahhabist schools that teach Sunni children throughout the Middle East to hate Israelis and Americans, along with more laudable idealogies. And it’s the Sunnis, not the Shiites, that al-Qaeda tends to hook up with. By failing to make us less dependent on oil, Bush plays into the hands of people who hate us.

Such notions should’ve sparked banner headlines long ago, but they didn’t, so why should we expect now to read headlines such as this:

President Bush Secretly Funds al-Qaeda-linked Terrorists.

Listen up, while I demonstrate fairness and balance right HERE. To be clear Bush funds these terrorists, many of whom want to kill us, as a way of fighting other terrorists who want to kill us.

But Bush’s incoherent policies have driven us to this pass.

There are no doubt myriad psychological reasons why Bush invaded Iraq. His main, stated goals were to eliminate WMDs and install a democracy—sort of like swapping out an engine in a ’57 Chevy. You and I know it’s more complicated, but even assuming THAT was Bush’s true goal, the POLICY used to achieve it was incoherent, because—as a few of us tried to point out as early as 2002—if you put the majority in charge of Iraq, you'd end up with a Shiite dominated state. That’s who the majority is.

And that Shiite dominated state naturally has lots in common with Iran, the Shiite dominated state next door that Bush long since labeled part of the Axis of Evil. Bush might well bomb Iran unmercifully before he leaves office, Hersh writes. Face it, Bush and Cheney built a faith-based policy on the unstable sands of Neo-conservative dogma, and they did it with no fallback plan rooted in a firmer reality.

Now the so-called Shiite Crescent, stretching from southern Iraq, through Iran and into Southern Lebanon, is on the rise, much to the chagrin of Israel and the anger of many Sunnis throughout the Middle East. Alarmed by this wholly predictable turn, Bush has accelerated his fight against the Shiites of Iran, which makes the Shiites we installed to govern Iraq angry and nervous. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his sometime-ally, Muqtada al-Sadr, who essentially commands tens of thousands of Shiite militia in Iraq, are no fools. They know Bush and his top advisors made a calculated decision to fund and arm people they can only regard as enemies, including the al-Qaeda connected Sunnis inside and bordering Iran. So why did all the major networks not lead with the earthshaking news that our president is funding terrorists?

I’d wager it’s related to the reason my editors tried muzzling articles like this at my last job.

Cognitive dissonance, my friend. Look it up.

Copyright © 2007 by Don Williams, All Rights Reserved

Dems nix idea of military budget cuts

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

Just hours after floating the idea of cutting $20 billion from President Bush's $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (news, bio, voting record) was overruled by fellow Democrats Thursday.

"It's nothing that any of us are considering," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., told reporters.

Conrad's trial balloon to cut war funding would have affected the budget year beginning Oct. 1 and was separate from the ongoing debate over Bush's $100 billion request for immediate supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even the Pentagon acknowledges that its $142 billion 2008 war funding request is simply a best guess of Iraq and Afghanistan costs, and Conrad's proposal didn't earn rebukes from Budget Committee Republicans.

But the speed with which it was rejected by his colleagues seemed to reflect Democrats' sensitivity to any accusations of giving shortshrift treatment to funding for troops in battle.

"Our caucus feels strongly that we should go with the president's numbers" on 2008 war costs, Conrad said. He spoke just hours after floating the idea of curbing Bush's request for next year's war budget.

The North Dakota Democrat said he was simply seeking to come up with the most accurate figures possible for war costs as he develops a Democratic budget blueprint for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The $20 billion cut was based on Congressional Budget Office estimates — instead of the administration's February budget request — of Iraq and Afghanistan war costs.

The administration asked for $141.7 billion for fiscal 2008, but assumes only $50 billion for 2009 and no war funding after that.

CBO issued an estimate last month that forecasts 2008 costs of $120 billion for Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and military aid for the armies of those two countries. The estimates would drop to $75 billion in 2009 and to $40 billion in 2010.

The CBO scenario assumes the number of troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are reduced to 30,000 by 2010.

Even before restoring the proposed cut for 2008, Conrad's budget plan assumed $85 billion more in war funds than Bush requested. That's because Conrad included money for a continued troop presence over 2010-2012.

"We are going to provide actually more funding, because we think the president's budget has understated the war costs over the five-year period," Conrad had said at the time he broached the idea of slashing $20 billion from the budget request.

Conrad added that the congressional budget resolution he is drafting for debate later this month will provide Bush's request for a $49 billion boost — to $481 billion — in the core Pentagon budget.

The annual congressional budget blueprint sets guidelines but is not binding, and the actual war budget will be set under a fiscal 2008 defense spending bill that will advance later this year.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England told the budget panel that the administration's $142 billion 2008 war request is the Pentagon's best estimate but that it "could go up or down" depending on how well the war goes.

The nearly four-year-old war in Iraq has thus far been financed primarily through emergency spending bills, to growing criticism from lawmakers who say it should be part of the long-term budget. Last month's Bush budget submission represented the first time the administration offered a detailed war funding request so far in advance.

A separate issue is the looming $100 billion Iraq and Afghanistan funding bill, which continues to roil Capitol Hill.

Democrats are deeply divided over their Iraq strategy, but leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., want the war funding bill to require that any troops deployed in Iraq be properly trained, equipped and rested.

The conditions could be waived, under their most recent plan, but President Bush would have to do so himself, and report to Congress each time.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, said Republicans would vote against the war funding measure if it contained restrictions that inhibited Bush, but he said Republicans would have to see a detailed proposal before reaching any such decision.

"We will fight every effort that the Democrats attempt to put handcuffs on the president to stymie his ability to wage this war in Iraq and to win it," Boehner said.

The comments marked something of a role revision for Republicans, who have savaged Democrats for proposing conditions on the Iraq spending measure, saying they were trying to cut off funding for the troops.

Do Something Good

Related
Murtha Stumbles on Iraq Funding Curbs
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February 22, 2007

This past Tuesday, in Fairbanks, Alaska, nine people entered the office of Senator Ted Stevens to deliver their “emphatic request” that the Senator vote against supplemental funding for the war and then began reading the names of Iraqis and U.S. people who had died because of this war. They separated the names of U.S. troops by age. When ordered to leave, they were only half way through the commemoration of the twenty-one year old U.S. troops who died in Iraq. They began by reading the ages of the younger troops.

Seth Warncke, a University student, was issued a citation; Rob Mulford and Don Muller were taken to the Fairbanks Correctional Unit. They were released after being in jail for 23 hours.

Senator Steven’s staff worker in the Fairbanks office assured the nine peace activists occupying the office that their efforts were worthless. “The Senator’s aide told us that our action wouldn’t do any good,” said Rob Mulford, “but when we were locked up I knew we’d done something good because a woman jailer spotted us in our cells and she said, ‘Oh! You guys are my heroes!’”

On a more somber note, Rob Mulford and Don Muller told me of a fellow prisoner whom they encountered in the correctional center. He was an Iraq war veteran, age 21. The guards were kind to him, but the young man was very disturbed and ended up fracturing his hand and fist, pounding a wall. After falling asleep, he repeatedly woke up, shouting and cursing, “You killed my friend, - I’m gonna’ kill you,” and intermittently sobbing, “It doesn’t change. It never goes away.”

Rob Mulford, himself an Air Force veteran and the local contact for Veterans for Peace, was watching from his cell.

Rob and Don are two of the several dozen people who’ve been arrested in the first two weeks of “the Occupation Project,” a campaign to end U.S. funding for war in Iraq.

The same day, in Chicago, four women were kneeling in front of the Federal Building, chanting the names of Iraqis and U.S. service people killed in Iraq. Their statement read: “We are a poet, a doctor, a pregnant woman, and a grandmother. We are risking arrest today to publicly protest Senator Durbin’s refusal to vote NO on the president’s $93 Billion dollar supplemental appropriations request to continue funding the immoral and unjust war in Iraq. If Senator Durbin is against this war, he must stop funding it. We will occupy the lobby of the federal building until removed because we strongly believe that this war must end.” These women will go to trial insisting that Senators Durbin and Obama have “the power of the purse,” —the power to end this war not by submitting resolutions almost certain to be vetoed by President Bush, but rather by simply refusing to fund it.

The Occupation Project is developing, nationally, into a sustained campaign. We welcome participation, and encourage further nonviolent efforts to resist appropriations for military action in Iraq, or against Iran, other than funds to withdraw troops from Iraq. It’s wrong to fund killing and destruction in another country because people in that country oppose the Bush administration’s political agenda for their country. What is more, U.S. soldiers will be killed in carrying out this agenda, and thousands of Iraqi civilians will be killed in “collateral damage,” people who may or may not be opposed to the Bush administration’s political agenda for their country.

The following day, Ash Wednesday, 25 Chicagoans held an ecumenical prayer service and then attempted to deliver a letter to Senators Durbin and Obama. Many in the group were clergy, vested in their clerical garb. They had gathered to pray for forgiveness, as a nation, for the times we all had not spoken out against the war. They wanted to assure that the Senators of Illinois heard their remorse and understood their opposition to the war and its ongoing funding.

But when they approached the Federal Building, security officials quickly locked all entrances to the Federal Building. A member of Senator Obama’s office staff told the assembled group that all staff members were in a meeting, but that they definitely wanted to receive their letter. Unfortunately, security officials at the Federal Building said nobody could enter. When a high school student who had joined the prayer service placed a cell phone call to Senator Durbin’s office, he was disappointed that the staff member there hung up the phone after a very brief exchange. Eventually, three of Senator Durbin’s staff members emerged from the Federal Building to receive the letter.

The constitution insists that congress shall make no law abridging the right of people to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance. We bear a terrible grievance as we exercise our responsibility to end the “war of choice” waged by the Bush administration.

As the Occupation Project develops, we carry, shoulder to shoulder, the responsibility that comes with hearing an agonized cry, epitomizing the horror of the consequences of war: “It doesn’t go away.”

Until the U.S. stops funding war in Iraq, we cannot go away either.

Related Project:
The Occupation Project

Categories: Writings by Voices

By Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly ( Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org

Debunking the Myths about "Cutting Funding" for the War

Mark Weisbrot and Robert Naiman

02.19.2007

The key talking point of supporters of indefinitely continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq boils down to this: there is nothing Congress can do to compel the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq except "cut the funding," and cutting the funding would hurt the troops.

So far this argument has been quite effective at cowing the leadership in Congress; indeed, until now the leadership has mostly echoed this argument.

It's not surprising: this argument has not been seriously challenged in the media, and in fact, according to recent polls, it's partly accepted by a majority of the public. Recent polls indicate that a majority wants Congress to take action to bring the troops home within a year, but a majority also opposes "cutting the funding." Of course this is a chicken-and-egg situation: the media take cues from the leadership of the parties, the party leaderships take cues from the media, and the public takes cues from the parties and the media.

But so long as the Congressional leadership fails to challenge the view that there is nothing that they can do except cut the funding, and cutting the funding would harm the troops, the war will not end.

There is no question that the troops are in danger. They are in danger because they are in Iraq. The simplest way to remove them from danger is to remove them from Iraq.

There is no serious question that regardless of what path Congress takes towards promoting a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq Congress is going to make sure that U.S. troops have equipment for self-protection. In fact, Democrats in Congress arguably have been more concerned about protecting the troops in Iraq than the Administration, on questions like body armor and armoring of vehicles, for example.

Would an orderly withdrawal (or "redeployment") of U.S. troops from Iraq increase the danger to U.S. troops? Obviously, after the withdrawal the troops would be in much less danger. How about while they are being withdrawn? While there certainly would not be zero danger, there is no reason to think that the danger would increase, and every reason to think that it would decrease. There may well be some armed groups in Iraq who have a specific goal of killing American soldiers, and perhaps such groups would continue to try to kill American soldiers even if it were clear that U.S. soldiers were withdrawing, but there is no reason to think that an orderly withdrawal would increase this risk. On the other hand, the bulk of the insurgency is clearly motivated by a desire to drive U.S. forces from Iraq, and since attacking U.S. troops is a risky enterprise, there is every reason to believe that if the U.S. were to demonstrate the intention to withdraw its forces attacks on U.S. forces would decrease. In fact, in the past insurgent groups negotiating with U.S. officials have offered to cease attacks on U.S. forces if the U.S. would set a timetable for withdrawal. So it is likely that establishing such a timetable would make U.S. troops safer, even during the withdrawal.

Would withdrawing from Iraq give "victory" to our enemies? Only children and adults who have lost the ability to reason allow themselves to be ruled by this logic. A rational person asks first: what is in my interest? If extricating themselves from a dangerous enterprise that is gaining them nothing is in their interest, rational people do extricate themselves, even at the "cost" of mockery by their "enemies."

Is there any danger Congress will bring about a "precipitous" withdrawal? Is Congress capable of doing anything opposed to the President's policy in Iraq precipitously? Look how long it took the House to pass a non-binding resolution against the increase in troops - a resolution that still has not passed the Senate, although it was supported by a majority of Senators.

The mostly likely outcome is that Congress could, using its power of the purse and other war powers, force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in the future. Even if Congress didn't appropriate a dollar of the President's request for more funding, enough money has already been appropriated to cover an orderly withdrawal. And if more money were needed to cover an orderly withdrawal, Congress would approve it in a heartbeat.

Does "supporting the troops" require "supporting their mission?" U.S. troops do not determine their "mission." Subject to the requirements of U.S. and international law, U.S. troops follow orders from our elected government. If Congress must "support the mission" in order to "support the troops," then Congress must support and fund whatever President Bush decides, even if it is criminally insane. According to this logic, if President Bush orders 150,000 U.S. troops to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge as a message to Osama Bin Laden that we are not to be trifled with, then Congress must not only support this, but approve tax dollars to pay for the buses to drive soldiers to the bridge.

Representative Murtha and Speaker Pelosi have offered a way around the impasse about "cutting the funding": they plan to give the President all the money he asks for the war in Iraq, but put restrictions on the money that would have the effect of stopping the President from increasing troop deployments in Iraq and force him to begin withdrawing troops. While Representative Murtha deserves credit for trying to figure out a way around the impasse, it's not obvious that this strategy will work, so long as the myth that ending funding for the war will harm the troops is left unchallenged. It's quite clear how the President's supporters in Congress are going to argue against the Murtha plan: they are going to say that it is a sneaky way to cut the funding, and therefore, it will harm the troops.

So Murtha plan or no, those who wish to end the war and bring the troops home would be well-advised to get busy pulling apart the argument that ending funding for the war will harm the troops. As Tom Matzzie of MoveOn has argued, Democrats need to directly rebut the Republican charge that Democrats are threatening the safety of American forces in the field by pushing restrictions on war funding. "Cutting off funding as described by the media and White House is a caricature," Matzzie told The Politico. "It has never happened in U.S. history, and it won't happen now."

READ MORE: United States, Iraq

by Mark Weisbrot and Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, February 19, 2007

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net) Washington, D.C. and President of Just Foreign Policy. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on international economic policy.

He writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and most major U.S. newspapers. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs.

More information on his publications is available here.

Robert Naiman is National Coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, a
membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy to
reflect the values and serve the interests of the majority of
Americans. Naiman edits the daily Just Foreign Policy news summary.
JFP's web site is www.justforeignpolicy.org.

Congress Must Defund the War

Remarks of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold

On Opposing the President’s Iraq Escalation Policy and Using the Power of the Purse to End Our Military Involvement in Iraq

February 16, 2007

Watch the video of Senator Feingold's remarks.
Listen to the audio of Senator Feingold's remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, we are approaching the four-year anniversary of one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in our country’s history. In March 2003, with the prior authorization of Congress, the President took this country to war in Iraq. Almost four years later, virtually every objective observer – and, more importantly, the American people as a whole – agree that the President’s policy has failed.

Now even the President acknowledges his plan hasn’t worked, though his solution is not a new plan but a troop escalation. Of course, sending more troops to implement what is essentially the same flawed strategy makes no sense. And the American people agree that it makes no sense. And most of my colleagues agree that it makes no sense.

So the question becomes, with a President unable or unwilling to fix a flawed policy that is jeopardizing our national security and military readiness, what should we in Congress do about our country’s involvement in this disastrous war? Do we do nothing, and hope that the President will put things right, when he has shown time and time again that he is incapable of doing so? Do we simply tell the President that we aren’t happy with the way the war is going and that we hope he will change course? Or Mr. President do we take strong, decisive action to fix the President’s mistaken, self-defeating policies?

It’s pretty clear which course of action I support. I think it’s the course of action that the American people called for in the November elections. It’s the course of action that our national security needs, so we don’t continue to neglect global threats and challenges while we focus so much of our resources and our efforts on Iraq. It’s the course of action that will support, that will actually support, our brave troops and their families.

Mr. President, We must end our involvement in this tragic and misguided war. The President will not do so. Therefore, Congress must act.

So far, Congress has not lived up to that responsibility. Instead of taking strong action in the Senate, instead of considering binding legislation that fixes the President’s flawed Iraq strategy, we tied ourselves into knots last week in a convoluted and misguided effort to achieve a consensus that would have essentially reaffirmed congressional authorization for continuing our military involvement in Iraq. Of course here I am referring to the resolution proposed by the senior Senator from Virginia. This resolution was portrayed, at least at first, by members of both parties as an important, symbolic rebuke of the president's Iraq policy. In fact, it was not a rebuke at all. In parts, it read like a reauthorization of the war, rejecting troop redeployment and specifically authorizing "vigorous operations" in a critical region in Iraq.

Now when debate on the Warner resolution was blocked, we had a chance to get things right. And I am glad that our majority leader, Senator Reid, has chosen to bring up the resolution being debated in the House today expressing support for the troops and simply opposition to the so-called surge. Now this body, the Senate, should go on record in opposition to, or support of, the President’s plan.

I will vote to allow the debate on the resolution to take place. And I hope I will have the opportunity to actually vote for the resolution. I have yet to hear any convincing argument that sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq will bring about the political solution that is needed to end violence in that country.

Mr. President, the President of the United State’s decision to send more troops is based on two flawed assumptions. It assumes first, that the presence of even more of our service members will help Iraqi troops improve security in Baghdad, and second, that with improved security, Iraqi politicians can then achieve national reconciliation. Now the recent declassified NIE shot holes in both those assumptions. It said that the Iraqi Security Forces “will be hard pressed in the next 12-18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities.” And, “even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.” And obviously Mr. President, those are direct quotes not me characterizing the NIE.

In other words Mr. President, in the best case scenario, the best case scenario, U.S. forces provide a little security that Iraqi forces can’t sustain on their own and that Iraqi politicians won’t use to settle their entrenched differences. Now that doesn’t sound like a plan for success.

Now, some of my colleagues, even those who don’t support sending more troops to Baghdad, have spoken in favor of continued and even increased U.S. military operations in al Anbar province. Some of them even suggest that our troops should be combating an insurgency there. Now this, apart from everything else, is a recipe for disaster. Al Anbar province is where a majority of U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The insurgency there, as well as general opposition to the U.S. presence and to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, is fueled by the Sunnis' political and economic grievances. Conducting targeted missions to take out terrorists makes sense; but using U.S. troops to put down an insurgency doesn't. Maintaining – or, worse yet, increasing -- a substantial U.S. presence in a primarily Sunni area, without a political solution, means nothing less than a continuation of our unending, and self-defeating, policies in Iraq.

Clearly, Mr. President, the President’s decision to send more troops makes no sense. But I have to say that simply passing a nonbinding resolution criticizing it makes no sense either – if we just stop there. We need to go further and so we need to do it soon.

Let me remind my colleagues – when the voters rejected the President’s Iraq policy in November, they weren’t rejecting an escalation. That option wasn’t even on the table then. Who was talking about an escalation during that campaign? Certainly, the presiding officer knows well what was being discussed. They were rejecting the President’s policy of trying to achieve a political solution in Iraq with a massive and unlimited military presence. After delaying action for a couple of months, the President just plain ignored overwhelming public sentiment, the advice of members of both parties, and the views of military and foreign policy experts when he proposed his escalation. The administration turned its back on the American people. We in Congress should not follow suit. We have a responsibility to our constituents, and to our men and women in uniform. If no one will listen to, and act on, the will of the American people, then there is something seriously wrong with our political system.

After almost four years of a disastrous policy, we must bring our troops out of Iraq. To do otherwise is to ignore public outrage over the war and to ignore the many other, pressing national security priorities that we are neglecting in favor of a myopic focus on Iraq. The American people recognize that there is no U.S. military solution to Iraq's civil war. And as long as we focus disproportionate attention and resources on Iraq, we will not be able to counter the full range of threats that we face in places like Afghanistan, in Somalia, and many other places around the world.

So Congress must use its power. It must use its power of the purse to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq. Mr. President, let’s not be intimidated by the intentionally misleading rhetoric of the White House and its allies when they try to prevent any discussion of any real action by Congress to end the war. This isn’t about “cutting off funds for troops.” It’s about cutting off funds for the war. Every member of Congress agrees that we must continue to support our troops and give them the resources and support they need. By setting a date after which funding for the war will be terminated -- as I have proposed -- Congress can safely bring our troops out of harm's way. That’s how you get ‘em out of harm’s way. By getting them out of there.

There is plenty of precedent for Congress exercising its constitutional authority to stop U.S. involvement in armed conflict. Last month, I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War.”

Now without exception, every witness – those called by the majority and the minority. Those who have had a career more focused on the executive branch than the legislative branch – All of them did not challenge the constitutionality of Congress’ authority to end a war. Lou Fisher of the Library of Congress is acclaimed as one of the foremost experts on presidential war power – in fact, he literally wrote the book on this topic. He testified that Congress does not simply have the power – he said it has a responsibility to exercise it when needed. He said, and I quote:

"… is the continued use of military force and a military commitment in the Nation's interest? That is the core question. Once you decide that, if you decide it is not in the national interest, you certainly do not want to continue putting U.S. troops in harm's way."

The argument that cutting of funding for a flawed policy would hurt the troops, and that continuing to put U.S. troops in harm’s way supports the troops, makes no sense. By ending funding for the war, we can bring our troops safely out of Iraq. Walter Dellinger of Duke Law School made this point when he testified about my proposal he said:

"There would not be one penny less for salary of the troops. There would not be one penny less for benefits of the troops. There would not be one penny less for weapons or ammunition. There would not be one penny less for supplies or support. Those troops would simply be redeployed to other areas where the armed forces are utilized."

Instead of allowing the president's failed policy to continue, Congress can and should use its power of the purse to end our involvement in the Iraq war, safely redeploying the troops while ensuring, as I do in my bill, that important counterterrorism and training missions are still carried out.

We should be coming up with a strategy for post-redeployment Iraq and the region that is squarely within the context of the global fight against al-Qaida. So that means replacing a massive, unsustainable and unlimited military mission with a long-term strategy for mitigating the mess left behind by this war. With such a strategy, we can redirect substantially more resources and attention to the fight against al-Qaida and other affiliated or sympathetic international terrorist organizations.

As long as this President goes unchecked by Congress, our troops will remain needlessly at risk, and our national security will be compromised. So let me tell my colleagues – regardless of what happens with this resolution, this is just a first step. Worthwhile, but just a first step. And the first step must be followed by stronger steps. And it must be done quickly. I intend to keep pushing until the Senate votes to end our involvement in the Iraq war. And eventually this will happen, because this is what the strong majority of the American people want. Congress may be able to put off its day of reckoning temporarily; the Administration can continue down the same failed path a while longer; but all of us ignore the will of the American people at our peril.

So, let’s have this debate. And let’s do it openly and honestly. Let’s not pretend anyone wants to deny our troops the equipment and resources they need. Let’s not suggest that opposing the President’s strategy is unpatriotic, and that it would give aid and comfort to the enemy, that it would somehow weaken the resolve of our troops.

Those claims are outrageous, they are offensive, and they are untrue. Do my colleagues believe that the American people gave aid and comfort to the enemy when they rejected the President’s Iraq policy in November? Are the overwhelming majority of our constituents who oppose this war trying to undermine the troops? Of course not, Mr. President. So how could anyone suggest that Congress actually acting on the will of the American people undermines the troops or emboldens the enemy? Our troops are undermined by a policy that places them in harm’s way unnecessarily. And our enemy – our true enemy, al Qaeda and its allies – is emboldened by a U.S. strategy that neglects global challenges and instead just focuses on a single country. It is unfortunate that those who wish to defend this strategy would resort to these kinds of charges.

Let’s do the job of the Senate and have full, open debate and votes on fixing our Iraq policy. Let’s not pretend such a debate would harm our national security. And let’s not tell ourselves that it’s up to just the President to fix the horrible situation that his failed policies have created. It’s our responsibility to act, too. Congress made the tragic mistake of authorizing this war over four years ago and now Congress now Congress also has the job of bringing it to a close so that we can refocus on the terrorist and other global threats that have been neglected way too much over the past four years.

# # #

Money for Nothing: Iraq War Funding, 2004-2007

Feb 15, 2007

What is it that the US military is doing so differently in Iraq today than it was last year or the year before that would justify such a tremendous leap in spending on Operations & Maintenance? Asks Jeff Leys.

On February 5, President Bush submitted his war budget for 2007 and 2008 to Congress. He is seeking an additional $93 billion in funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the period that ends on September 30 of this year, as well as another $142 billion for the coming fiscal year which runs from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008. The February 8 hearing of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee suggested little hope that Congress will cut funding for the Iraq war. Representative John Murtha (Chair of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee) and Representative Dave Obey (Chair of the House Appropriations Committee) each emphasized that they will pass all funds necessary to "ensure the troops have all they need" (a paraphrase). Each stated he has worked to increase levels of funding for the war above and beyond what the White House asked for in prior spending bills, most notably in the so-called "bridge fund" passed last fall which provided $70 billion for the wars in this fiscal year. Murtha emphasized that he and Obey are committed to ensuring a vote on the bill by the full House of Representatives by March 14 or 15.

At the same hearing, General Peter Schoomaker stated that units which are deployed to Iraq are fully equipped. He stated that the problem which the military encounters is Unit A "borrows" the equipment of Unit B when Unit A deploys to Iraq and Unit B remains at home. The deficiency then becomes that Unit B is not able to adequately train. The issue is explicitly NOT that Unit A enters the war in Iraq without sufficient equipment, weapons, etc.

In this article, I aim to lay out an overview of the growth of war spending between 2004 and 2007, up to and including the current request for $93 billion more in supplemental war spending. I'll focus upon the three main categories of funding: Personnel; Operations and Maintenance; and Procurement. Within the Operations and Maintenance section I'll focus upon those funds appropriated or requested for use by U.S. military forces (including active duty as well as Guard and Reserve units), as opposed to those funds appropriated for such items as the Iraq Security Forces fund and the Afghanistan Security Forces fund. In doing so, I hope to maintain a control of sorts on the dollar amounts and categories discussed in the following analysis-comparing apples to apples rather than apples to oranges.

In the following discussion, the dollar amounts given for FY 2007 include funds provided in the "bridge fund" passed last fall and the funds sought by President Bush in the supplemental spending request. Dollar amounts are derived from the various House - Senate Conference Committee reports that accompanied prior war funding bills and the current supplemental request submitted by President Bush.

PROCUREMENT

The "Procurement" category covers the cost of buying new equipment, ammunitions, weapons systems, etc. The amount budgeted to buy new items grew from FY 2004 to FY 2006, but is now slated to take a gigantic leap in FY 2007.

FY 2004 -- $5.5 billion

FY 2005 -- $18.8 billion

FY 2006 -- $23 billion

FY 2007 - $44.6 billion

When Congress appropriates Procurement funds, it specifies that the money will be available for expenditure over the following three years. This is the standard life cycle of the procurement process, as it takes time to bid out the contracts; to produce the item; and to get the item shipped to the field. Indeed, at the February 9, 2007 hearing of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, General Peter Schoomaker and Secretary of the Army Frances Harvey both stated that it takes at least 18 months for equipment to be secured once funds have been appropriated for the purchase of an item, giving the example of an 18 month lag time for obtaining a vehicle transmission.

Because Procurement money is carried over from one fiscal year to the next, it becomes difficult to determine exactly how much money is available in a given fiscal year for Procurement. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that as of June 2006, $2.17 billion remained to be spent of the $6.8 billion appropriated in the fall of 2005 for FY 2006. In June 2006, Congress appropriated an additional $14.7 billion for FY 2006. This means that, as of June 2006, $16.8 billion remained to be spent of funds appropriated for procurement during FY 2006. The GAO concluded that the bulk of this $16.8 billion would most likely be rolled over into and spent in FY 2007. If indeed most of this $16.8 billion rolled over into the current year, it would mean that the Department of Defense would have upwards of $61.4 billion to spend on Procurement alone this year (the $16.8 billion carry over, plus the $44.6 billion to be appropriated for Procurement for FY 2007).

Now, let's take a look at the incredible increase in procurement monies being appropriated by Congress-a stunning 94% increase from FY 2006 to FY 2007, or $21.6 billion more this year than last year if the supplemental spending bill is passed.

If the supplemental war funding bill is passed, Congress will have approved $44.6 billion for Procurement this year alone-nearly as much as the $47.3 billion approved by Congress for the past three years combined.

While details are very sketchy about what these funds will be used for, some limited information is available within the supplemental request. The Army will receive the lion's share of these funds. For example, the subcategory for "weapons and tracked combat vehicles" is slated to receive $6.9 billion this year-compared to $5.3 billion total for the last 3 fiscal years combined. "Army aircraft" is to be funded at $2 billion this year-compared to $1.1 billion the past 3 fiscal years combined. "Army other" is to be funded at $14.9 billion this year-compared to $17.1 billion for the past 3 fiscal years combined. This "other" category includes the acquisition of such items as tactical and support vehicles; communications and electronics equipment; and other support equipment.

Spending on procurement of Air Force aircraft is also slated to leap in 2007, with $4.9 billion total being appropriated if the supplemental spending bill is passed. This compares to the $1.1 billion total appropriated in the last three fiscal years.

Again, it is important to stress that just because the funds are appropriated now does not mean that the equipment and weapons systems will automatically appear in the field for use by soldiers tomorrow. A one to three year lag time exists between the time funds are appropriated and the time an item is available to soldiers in the field. The funds being appropriated now are not to provide for soldiers in the field today. The funds being appropriated now for procurement purposes are to provide material for soldiers fighting the war in Iraq one to three years in the future.

PERSONNEL

The funding levels for personnel costs have remained remarkably consistent, despite fluctuations in levels of personnel deployed to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, personnel costs for FY 2007 (the current fiscal year) will be almost identical to personnel costs in FY 2004 (the first full fiscal year during the Iraq war):

2004 -- $17.8 billion

2005 -- $18.6 billion

2006 -- $16.5 billion

2007 -- $17.5 billion

Items included in this category are: special pays like foreign language proficiency; costs associated with stop-loss orders (forcing people to serve beyond their original end-date for enlistment); hazardous duty pay; increased life insurance payouts; and the like. Personnel costs do include the base rate of pay plus any special pays for members of the Reserves and National Guards who are on active duty.

Congress also made the political decision to fund the build up of the military through supplemental spending rather through the regular appropriations process. Each branch of the military is funded through the regular appropriations process for a set number of positions. Throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military has exceeded this number-called "over strength". Congress decided politically to fund this "over strength" through supplemental spending bills rather than including it in the baseline Department of Defense budget.

OPERATION & MAINTENACE (O & M)

The Operation & Maintenance portion of the budget continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Assuming the supplemental spending bill is approved, spending on O & M will be $77 billion this year-a 29.2% increase over last year and an astounding 108% increase over the 2004 cost.

Here's the growth in spending on O & M since 2004:

FY 2004 - $37.2 billion

FY 2005 -- $46.5 billion

FY 2006 -- $59.6 billion

FY 2007 -- $77 billion

As in past years, the Department of Defense's justification materials fail to provide much in the way of concrete and detailed information on how these funds will be expended. Nor does it give any indication of why the costs are growing so exponentially yet again.

This is a common critique of the funding process, especially as it relates to the area of Operations and Maintenance. The Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office each issued reports or testimony in the past year which are critical of the accounting process. Each asserts that it is simply impossible to determine the purposes for which monies are spent.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in November 2006 that "…in fiscal year 2005, close to 26 percent of obligations reported in the operation and maintenance account were in 'other supplies and equipment' and 'other services and miscellaneous contracts.' This trend has continued in fiscal year 2006."

In testimony given on February 6, 2007 before the Senate Budget Committee, J. Michael Gilmore, Assistant Director for National Security of the Congressional Budget Office stated that according to reports of the Defense Finance and Accounting Services of the Department of Defense, "…about $98 billion was obligated for military operations in Iraq and the war on terrorism in fiscal year 2006. Of that amount, almost 25 percent ($23 billion) was allocated for purposes described as 'other'. Little information was provided to suggest how those 'other' funds were obligated."

Absent any concrete justification materials or line item accounting of expenditures, it is indeed impossible to determine why the costs of Operations and Maintenance are skyrocketing. Is it the cost of fuel? Are more bombing runs being flown by the Air Force? Has the cost of food risen that dramatically? What is it that the U.S. military is doing so differently in Iraq today than it was last year or the year before that would justify such a tremendous leap in spending on Operations & Maintenance?

Jeff Leys is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) and a national organizer with the Occupation Project campaign of sustained civil disobedience to end Iraq war funding. He can be reached via email, jeffleys@vcnv.org

In Congress, Opposing the War but Doing Nothing to Stop It

Related

February 12, 2007: Another Supplemental Spending Bill for the War in Iraq
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February 14, 2007:
Congressman Paul speaks on the Iraq War Resolution

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HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives

February 14, 2007


Statement on the Iraq War Resolution

This grand debate is welcomed but it could be that this is nothing more than a distraction from the dangerous military confrontation approaching with Iran and supported by many in leadership on both sides of the aisle.

This resolution, unfortunately, does not address the disaster in Iraq. Instead, it seeks to appear opposed to the war while at the same time offering no change of the status quo in Iraq. As such, it is not actually a vote against a troop surge. A real vote against a troop surge is a vote against the coming supplemental appropriation that finances it. I hope all of my colleagues who vote against the surge today will vote against the budgetary surge when it really counts: when we vote on the supplemental.

The biggest red herring in this debate is the constant innuendo that those who don’t support expanding the war are somehow opposing the troops. It’s nothing more than a canard to claim that those of us who struggled to prevent the bloodshed and now want it stopped are somehow less patriotic and less concerned about the welfare of our military personnel.

Osama bin Laden has expressed sadistic pleasure with our invasion of Iraq and was surprised that we served his interests above and beyond his dreams on how we responded after the 9/11 attacks. His pleasure comes from our policy of folly getting ourselves bogged down in the middle of a religious civil war, 7,000 miles from home that is financially bleeding us to death. Total costs now are reasonably estimated to exceed $2 trillion. His recruitment of Islamic extremists has been greatly enhanced by our occupation of Iraq.

Unfortunately, we continue to concentrate on the obvious mismanagement of a war promoted by false information and ignore debating the real issue which is: Why are we determined to follow a foreign policy of empire building and pre-emption which is unbecoming of a constitutional republic?

Those on the right should recall that the traditional conservative position of non-intervention was their position for most of the 20^th Century-and they benefited politically from the wars carelessly entered into by the political left. Seven years ago the Right benefited politically by condemning the illegal intervention in Kosovo and Somalia. At the time conservatives were outraged over the failed policy of nation building.

It’s important to recall that the left, in 2003, offered little opposition to the pre-emptive war in Iraq, and many are now not willing to stop it by de-funding it or work to prevent an attack on Iran.

The catch-all phrase, “War on Terrorism”, in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against criminal gangsterism. It’s deliberately vague and non definable to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere, and under any circumstances. Don’t forget: the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with any terrorist attack against us including that on 9/11.

Special interests and the demented philosophy of conquest have driven most wars throughout history. Rarely has the cause of liberty, as it was in our own revolution, been the driving force. In recent decades our policies have been driven by neo-conservative empire radicalism, profiteering in the military industrial complex, misplaced do-good internationalism, mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources, and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East.

For all the misinformation given the American people to justify our invasion, such as our need for national security, enforcing UN resolutions, removing a dictator, establishing a democracy, protecting our oil, the argument has been reduced to this: If we leave now Iraq will be left in a mess-implying the implausible that if we stay it won’t be a mess.

Since it could go badly when we leave, that blame must be placed on those who took us there, not on those of us who now insist that Americans no longer need be killed or maimed and that Americans no longer need to kill any more Iraqis. We’ve had enough of both!

Resorting to a medical analogy, a wrong diagnosis was made at the beginning of the war and the wrong treatment was prescribed. Refusing to reassess our mistakes and insist on just more and more of a failed remedy is destined to kill the patient-in this case the casualties will be our liberties and prosperity here at home and peace abroad.

There’s no logical reason to reject the restraints placed in the Constitution regarding our engaging in foreign conflicts unrelated to our national security. The advice of the founders and our early presidents was sound then and it’s sound today.

We shouldn’t wait until our financial system is completely ruined and we are forced to change our ways. We should do it as quickly as possible and stop the carnage and financial bleeding that will bring us to our knees and force us to stop that which we should have never started.

We all know, in time, the war will be de-funded one way or another and the troops will come home. So why not now?

Everybody Supports the Troops

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives

January 18, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our armed forces. This is pure demagoguery, and it’s intellectually dishonest. The accusers play on emotions to gain support for controversial policies, implying that those who disagree are unpatriotic. But keeping our troops out of harm’s way, especially when war is unnecessary, is never unpatriotic. There’s no better way to support the troops.

Since we now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not threatening anyone, we must come to terms with 3,000 American deaths and 23,000 American casualties. It’s disconcerting that those who never believed the justifications given for our invasion, and who now want the war ended, are still accused of not supporting the troops! This is strange indeed!

Instead of questioning who has the best interests of our troops at heart, we should be debating which policy is best for our country. Defensive wars to preserve our liberties, fought only with proper congressional declarations, are legitimate. Casualties under such circumstances still are heartbreaking, but they are understandable. Casualties that occur in undeclared, unnecessary wars, however, are bewildering. Why must so many Americans be killed or hurt in Iraq when our security and our liberty were not threatened?

Clichés about supporting the troops are designed to distract us from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war. Anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

Many now agree that we must change our policy and extricate ourselves from the mess in Iraq. They cite a mandate from the American people for a new direction. This opinion is now more popular, and thus now more widely held by politicians in Washington. But there’s always a qualifier: We can’t simply stop funding the war, because we must support the troops. I find this conclusion bizarre. It means one either believes the “support the troops” propaganda put out by the original promoters of the war, or that one actually is for the war after all, despite the public protestations.

In reality, support for the status quo (and the president’s troop surge) in Iraq means expanding the war to include Syria and Iran. The naval build up in the region, and the proxy war we just fought to take over Somalia, demonstrate the administration’s intentions to escalate our current war into something larger.

There’s just no legitimacy to the argument that voting against funding the war somehow harms our troops. Perpetuating and escalating the war only serve those whose egos are attached to some claimed victory in Iraq, and those with a determination to engineer regime change in Iran.

Don’t believe for a minute that additional congressional funding is needed so our troops can defend themselves or extricate themselves from the war zone. That’s nonsense. The DOD has hundreds of billions of dollars in the pipeline available to move troops anywhere on earth-- including home.

We shouldn’t forget that the administration took $600 million from the war in Afghanistan and used it in Iraq, before any direct appropriations were made for the invasion of Iraq. Funds are always available to put our troops into harms way; they are always available for leaving a war zone.

Those in Congress who claim they want the war ended, yet feel compelled to keep funding it, are badly misguided. They either are wrong in their assessment that cutting funds would hurt the troops, or they need to be more honest about supporting a policy destined to dramatically increase the size and scope of this misadventure in the Middle East. Rest assured one can be patriotic and truly support the troops by denying funds to perpetuate and spread this ill-advised war.

The sooner we come to this realization, the better it will be for all of us.

How US is deferring war costs

from the January 16, 2007 edition

As war spending on Iraq and Afghanistan nears the levels for Vietnam and Korea, concern is rising over the 'borrow now, pay later' approach.

Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK

To pay for World War II, Americans bought savings bonds and put extra notches in their belts. President Harry Truman raised taxes and cut nonmilitary spending to pay for the Korean conflict. During Vietnam, the US raised taxes but still watched deficits soar.

But to pay for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has used its credit card, counting on the Chinese and other foreign buyers of its debt to pay the bills.

Now, as President Bush is promising to boost the number of troops in Iraq, there is increased scrutiny over how the US is going to pay for it all.

The US is spending about $10 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year, the total funds appropriated will be nearly $600 billion – approaching the amount spent on the Vietnam or Korean wars, when adjusted for inflation.

However, the actual impact of the war on the economy is different than in the past, largely because the US economy is so much bigger now. During World War II, some analysts calculate that the US spent as much as 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the war effort. The Korean War, at its spending peak in 1953, represented 14 percent of GDP; Vietnam was about 9 percent. The current war, however, is less than 1 percent of America's annual $13 trillion GDP.

Payment due: in the future

The US can certainly afford the war, says budget analyst Stan Collender, a managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington. But the spending is taking resources from other areas, he notes. Because the US is borrowing to finance the war, the cost will be borne by future generations. "And it's still going to be one of the most expensive wars we have ever fought," he says.

Unlike in previous major wars, the United States has cut taxes at the same time it has increased military spending. "It's fair to say all of the money spent on the war has been borrowed," says Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington. "But eventually everything has to be paid for."

Congressional questioning

Congress hopes to hold hearings on the financial implications of the war before the president releases his budget proposal for fiscal year 2008 on Feb. 5. Democrats, now in the majority, plan to ask a wide range of questions, from the future costs of the war to how those costs should be budgeted.

"We won't balance the budget in one year. The best we can expect is five years," says Rep. John Spratt (D) of South Carolina, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, in a phone interview. "But we need to know: What is the bar we need to reach?"

Estimating the budget deficit has become more difficult in recent years because the White House has funded much of the war through emergency supplemental bills, which are not included in the federal budget. According to a Congressional Research Service report, it is a practice that other administrations have employed since the Korean War. This year, the White House is expected to ask for another $100 billion in supplemental war funds, but Representative Spratt says he would like to get the war back on the budget since it can be argued the war is no longer an emergency.

"Calling it an emergency means the spending does not get the scrutiny," he adds, because then the spending is reviewed by only one committee – House Appropriations. In addition, he says, emergency spending is exempt from caps on discretionary spending. This has prompted the military to include in the bill items that are not directly related to the war. Making the spending a part of the budget would end the practice of some members placing pet projects on a bill that must be passed, he says.

A war-by-war cost comparison

Numbers are fuzzy on how much has been spent so far on the global war on terror. According to the House Appropriations Committee, some $471 billion has been committed so far. Spratt says it's closer to $507 billion. By the end of this year, on a cash basis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be closing in on the costs of the Vietnam War ($650 billion in today's dollars) and the Korean War ($691 billion).

Some analysts believe the cost of the war is much higher than Congress estimates. In a study last January and updated in October, Harvard Prof. Linda Bilmes and Columbia Prof. Joseph Stiglitz estimated the budgetary and economic cost of the war at $2 trillion.

Ms. Bilmes, in a phone interview, says Congress looks only at its cash outlays, not at the war's future costs. For example, she says, an estimated 42,000 light trucks are in use in Iraq. Although it costs something to run them, the major cost will be replacing them. "That's not factored into the cost of the war," she says.

The same is true of the cost of taking care of injured veterans in the future. "After our study came out, what surprised us is that the VFW, the Vietnam Vets, and others said, 'Thanks for shining the spotlight on this issue, but your numbers are too low,' " Bilmes says. After working with the vets, she concluded that the future costs of caring for the wounded were much higher than she had estimated.

Just the cash costs alone have mushroomed over the past two years, says Steve Kosiak, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank in Washington. He estimates that Congress has appropriated nearly $300 billion during that period. "Perhaps some of the additional cost is for repairing the equipment," he says. "But it's fair to say it's partly a mystery why it's up so much."

Polls show people are concerned about the war, says Dennis Jacobe, chief economist at the Gallup Organization in Washington. But, he adds, "they are not concerned about the cost."

This is partly because of the way the war is funded through the supplemental budget process, Mr. Jacobe says. But it's also because the war has not disrupted the economy the same way past wars have. "It's really had no significant impact except for the deficit spending," he says.

By Ron Scherer