Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War

Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War

Today in the Washington Post:

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

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

This would bring the total cost of the war in Iraq to 500 billion dollars! (Source: costofwar.com)

Now, the Americans spend almost the same amount (460 billion dollars) annualy on their military expenses world-wide. Comparisation: according to the UN an annualy amount of 100 billion dollars is sufficient to root out the worst poverty in the world (Source: UNDP, Human Development report 2003, Washington 2003, p. 11).

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How does the US government spend it’s budget?