WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) -- The Pentagon and State Department outlined more than $2 billion in additional costs for Iraq and Afghanistan at a Senate hearing Tuesday, a figure that does not include increased costs incurred by extra troops, lengthened deployments and the recent high pace of military operations.
Nevertheless, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insisted the White House has no immediate plans to ask for another supplemental appropriation to pay for the war.
He told the Senate Armed Services Committee the White House will ask for a supplemental "if we think one is necessary, when one is necessary."
The Pentagon is spending about $1 billion each week in Iraq, a senior budget official confirmed Monday. Funding for the war comes not from the Defense Department's annual budget but from special appropriations bills earmarked for Iraq. There have been two since the war started, totaling about $160 billion.
The joint chiefs of staff told Congress earlier this year that at their current spending rate, they will run out of money to fund the war around September, a month before the new fiscal year begins.
The Pentagon has announced it has no plans to seek a supplemental for 2005 until December or January -- after the presidential election -- forcing the military services to "cash flow" money from their peacetime operations and maintenance accounts for at least four months to finance Iraq operations.
By comparison, U.S. President George W. Bush requested an $87 billion supplemental for 2004 in August of last year. His public appeal for the money was followed by a steep drop in his approval rating last year.
On Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers said the deficit for Iraq operations this year was going to be even larger than the service chiefs told Congress: The Pentagon is holding over some 20,000 Army troops for 90 days in response to a pitched battle ongoing in central Iraq against both Sunni and Shiite insurgents. Moreover, National Guard and Reserve soldiers who are exceeding their one-year deployment in Iraq are getting extra compensation, Myers said.
Myers said his staff is evaluating now whether there are adequate funds to cover the Iraq war, but he confirmed that there was an increase in operational costs.
Wolfowitz also outlined $1 billion in "special authorities" he is asking Congress for. The Pentagon wants $500 million to better equip military and security forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and "friendly nearby regional nations" -- presumably Pakistan.
The Pentagon is also seeking an additional $300 million for the Commanders Emergency Response Fund, a cash infusion to U.S. military commanders to allow them to kick start local and usually small reconstruction projects. It is also seeking an additional $200 million to provide additional help to the Afghan National Army.
Much of the $500 million will go toward equipping and training Iraqi internal security forces, nearly half of whom refused to fight, ran away or sided with insurgents in the recent violence, Wolfowitz confirmed.
More than 250 Iraqi security forces have been killed and 700 wounded in the line of duty since June 2003, he said.
Wolfowitz said one of the main problems is that the Iraqi police and civil defense force were outgunned by insurgents, and blamed delays from the Pentagon's contracting process in getting them the supplies they need.
More information about what went wrong with Iraqi security forces is likely contained in a classified report from Army Maj. Gen. Karl Eikenberry. Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Jack Reed pressed Wolfowitz for access to the report -- a request he made over a month ago -- leading to a tense exchange.
Wolfowitz told Reed he would ask if he is able to share the report with the senators on the committee, all of whom have security clearances. He attributed his reluctance to a desire not to inhibit people from talking honestly to those sent to the field to get progress reports.
"We have just as much a right to this information as you do," Reed shot back. "If those contents are embarrassing to you ..."
"The issue is how to protect the decision process," Wolfowitz said.
"This is an astounding statement," a clearly outraged Reed said, pointing out that the committee's role was to exercise oversight.
In question is whether the Pentagon had some inkling that Iraqi security forces would not stand and fight if challenged, and whether that means the military in Iraq should have taken precautionary measures.
Central Command Chief Gen. John Abizaid told the committee in March the Eikenberry report "is an important report about the adequacy of Iraqi security forces, the composition, et cetera."
For critics of the war, it speaks to their belief that the Pentagon banked on Iraqis welcoming U.S. forces and being ready to take up arms against Saddam's loyalists once liberated. That scenario has not come to pass. While the insurgency seems fairly limited in both geography and numbers, U.S. forces continue to have a difficult time getting intelligence from Iraqis on their activities. This problem suggests they side with the adversary or don't want to be involved in any way.
Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the committee he anticipates needed more than $1.5 billion in the next year to set up a new American Embassy in Baghdad.
Congress has already provided $97 million for the interim embassy in 2004. The State Department expects to get about $198 million more from the Coalition Provisional Authority it is due to replace in Baghdad in July. It is also slated to get $180 million from the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund.
Grossman said the State Department will need between $500 million and $600 million to complete the transition from the CPA to the embassy this year. It will need another $1 billion in 2005, part of which will go toward the construction of a new, secure embassy building.
He confirmed that the Bush administration is discussing what to include in a new U.N. Security Council resolution to take effect on July 1, when an Iraqi body assumes sovereignty over that country.
A NATO official said last month some of the 17 NATO member countries that now have troops committed to Iraq will be compelled to pull them out after July 1 if the United Nations does not specifically authorize the security mission.
Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and ranking Democrat from Michigan Sen. Carl Levin both expressed concern about the effect sovereignty will have on U.S. forces in Iraq. While Pentagon officials say they have already made legal arrangements for their presence in the country after July 1, Warner and Levin warned that a sovereign entity may revoke those privileges.
Wolfowitz said Iraq's sovereignty "is limited by the U.N. Security Council Resolution" now in effect.
"The issue ... is political, not legal. We had that issue today with a different legal framework. The use of force in someone else's country has always got potential political ramifications and
political controversy," Wolfowitz said.
Wolfowitz opened the hearing with a lengthy statement outlining the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime and the progress made so far in rebuilding that country. He did not mention the question of weapons of mass destruction. It was Iraq's purported pursuit of a nuclear weapon that formed the basis for much of Bush's case for war.
This oversight was not lost on Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy.
"There wasn't a word in this presentation about WMD," he said. "Isn't the world paying a high price because of this administration's obsession with Iraq?"
Wolfowitz disputed Kennedy's assertion he had been planning a new Iraq war since 1991.
"That is simply wrong," he said -- and then launched a counter-attack on the former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, who Wolfowitz contends ignored the fact that one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers was harbored in Iraq for 10 years.
"His lack of curiosity why Iraq was holding the man responsible for the most serious act of terrorism (against the United States) is a mystery to me," Wolfowitz said.
