Pricetag for US operations in Iraq to rise steeply: Wolfowitz

[nolabels]

http://www.antiwar.com/



WASHINGTON : The pricetag for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year will greatly exceed the 25 billion dollars requested just last week by the White House, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told lawmakers Thursday.

"It will sure be much larger than 25 billion dollars," Wolfowitz said, adding that a request for another tranche of funds will likely be sent from the Pentagon to the Congress "early next calendar year."

"Our higher projected troop levels increase the risk that certain accounts, especially operation maintenance army, could have difficulty cash flowing operations beyond the February-March time frame in 2005.

"This reserve fund will eliminate that risk and provide a margin of safety," Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He refused however, to be pinned down on just how expensive the operations in Iraq were like to go.
(snip)
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/84866/1/.htm

[Karenina]

1. So the trillion dollar question is

WHEN WILL AMERICANS STAND UP AND SAY, NO SALE???? :shrug:

[saigon68]

14. WE HAVE TO DO THIS (its a FALWELL THING )

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

Refrain

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.

Refrain

Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

Refrain

What the saints established that I hold for true.
What the saints believèd, that I believe too.
Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled.

Refrain

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

Refrain

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.

Refrain

[FlemingsGhost]

2. One last score.

And why not... who's gonna stop them?

[NJCher]

3. also, it's supplemental

Randi pointed this out on her show today. It's SUPPLEMENTAL, which means it isn't even showing up in the budget for defense spending.

This war isn't even in the defense budget. The funds are actually being allocated outside the budget, which tells you a lot about how even they know defense spending is completely and totally out of control.


Cher

[truthisfreedom]

4. ahh, this is interesting. is this the new "truthful and straightforward"

administration?

or is wolfowitz just taking a risk and telling the truth against orders?

[nolabels]

8. Frankly, I have seen better and more honest used car salesmen

I hope and pray that people forget about their hopes or prayers and look into reality.

"To affirm that the Sun is at the centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures -Cardinal Robert Bellarmino, 17th Century Church Master Collegio Romano, who imprisoned and tortured Galileo for his astronomical works"

http://www.miniluv.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=471

[Langis]

5. Why isn't Kerry demanding a full accounting of all money going to Iraq?

And pointing out that Bush and Co. will never do this, but when he takes office every cent will be accoutered for. He can’t let Bush and Co get away with this War profiteering and not have it exposed.

[orthogonal]

6. Mission Accomplished?

But I thought it was Mission Accomplished! a year ago?

[truthisfreedom]

7. bump!

[Just Me]

9. Man, those war-profiteers are making a killing!!!! n/t

[Solly Mack]

10. Money is the least of the cost

for generations to come, America will be paying for this invasion...

[underpants]

11. Some perspective folks:Wolfo originally said it would cost $1.7 Billion

and to date special appropriations total $166 Billion. So maybe he misplaced the decimal point :shurg: but history tells us that this $50 Billion will actually be $5 Trillion, if the trend continues.

Seriously he is low balling this and everyone knows it.

[nolabels]

12. This guy has spent years trying to get to this point

I don't think he or the rest of the NeoCons are going to go quietly.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html
The Lie Factory

The media is buzzing with talk of Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," which describes the Bush administration's obsessive focus on Iraq and its secret plans for war. Little of this is news to Mother Jones readers. Late last year, a special Mother Jones investigation detailed how, only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war.

(snip)
Both Wolfowitz and Feith have deep roots in the neoconservative movement. One of the most influential Washington neo- conservatives in the foreign-policy establishment during the Republicans' wilderness years of the 1990s, Wolfowitz has long held that not taking Baghdad in 1991 was a grievous mistake. He and others now prominent in the administration said so repeatedly over the past decade in a slew of letters and policy papers from neoconservative groups like the Project for the New American Century and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Feith, a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s and an activist in far-right Zionist circles, held the view that there was no difference between U.S. and Israeli security policy and that the best way to secure both countries' future was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem not by serving as a broker, but with the United States as a force for "regime change" in the region.

Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no "bartering in the bazaar anymore. You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so."

Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying cryptically, "Those who speak, pay."

According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be "pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with," says a former analyst. "They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there."
(snip)

On edit a little more background
http://www.legitgov.org/essay_titus_anatomy_of_a_lie_wolfowitz_100203.html
(snip)
I beg to differ.

Wolfowitz isn't just a passive participant at PNAC. He's a founding father.

See:
* The Project for the New American Century --by William Rivers Pitt
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1665.htm

* "Rebuilding America's Defenses" -- A Summary
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3249.htm

* Rebuilding America's Defenses (PDF) the entire white paper. He is credited on page 90. The goulish quote "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." is on page 63.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

* ABC News (hardly a "Ramparts" of the news biz) reports "The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz . "
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html

* Paul Wolfowitz is described as a "leading participant", a "high profile sympathiser", "founding member", "a leading member", an "early backer of the group", author of the draft that became the Bush (Jr.) Doctrine, "contributor", a supervisor, an "early PNAC member ", etc., etc., for the Project for a New American Century. He also is a signer of the statement of principals for PNAC.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/2003/01/27/news/local/5025024.htm
(snip)

[Tracer]

13. No, no Underpants ....

.... it was Andrew Natsios that made that ludicrous claim.

[underpants]

15. Two sites (one Congressional) on cost quotes

You are right-I could have sworn it was Wolfowitz who said that. Either way they were WAaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off and either uninteresting in the actual numbers or just *gasp* flat out lying.


http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/iraqquotes_web.htm

http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/index.php?op=view&itemid=1086
The president's top reconstruction official at the State Department told Nightline that "The American part of will be $1.7 billion and we have no plans for further-on funding of this." The president's top economist, Glen Hubbard, said that "costs of any such intervention would be very small".

[nolabels]

16. For a state-by-state breakdown here is link

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/issues/military/iraq/factsheet03/index.html
(snip)
Invading and Occupying Iraq: The Impact on Your State

NPP offers a state-by-state breakdown of how President Bush's requested $87 billion in additional war spending could be spent instead to create more jobs and meet community needs at the same time. This Factsheet also provides a graphic illustration of current federal spending priorities, comparing the total amount of war-related spending with spending on basic needs such as food and nutrition, the environment, housing, education, the environment and veterans' benefits. (To find out the cost of the war on selected cities as well as the states, go to The Cost of War for States and Selected Cities.)

To add your voice to the federal debate, go to:
Take Action to find out how to contact your Congressperson.
Select your state below. (If needed, download free copy of Acrobat Reader to read the reports.)
(snip)

[underpants]

23. What an awesome site

Thanks

[denverbill]

17. Wolfowitz must go. How much more incompentant can someone be?

Jesus, if I was incompetant as him I'd have been fired LONG ago. How do these morons keep their jobs?

[nolabels]

22. They are appointed by the appointed by the appointed

and not answerable to anyone when elections are hijacked and reported on by the same people that virtually own them. This is why people would be willing to die to preserve it and institute it.

http://usabig.com/autonomist/libertydeath.html

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
(snip)

[hyphenate]

18. Why don't we just ask

this asshole, and all the other neocons to contribute their 401Ks and IRAs, and savings accounts, and income tax, and all their other holdings to pay for the fucking mess that THEY got us into in the first place? With all of these rich-assed chickenhawks, including the triumverate of evil, there would not only be enough case to cover it, but to keep the Iraqis in comfort for many years to come. The "little people" in the U.S. have better need of their own income--saving our asses here, our economy and our jobs. This whining snake doesn't deserve to even be heard, nevermind try to divert all the money that could help rebuild the U.S. from slimey bastards like himself.

[sandboxface]

19. Link is dead. EOM

[maddezmom]

20. here's another DU thread on the subject

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x554353

[Mountainman]

21. So why don't those who got a tax cut and support the war pay for it?

I know why, their the ones benefiting by the spending.

First they give a tax cut to their friends, then they cut any social spending they can, then they destroy a country to give their friend's business and pay for it all on our backs!

The nerve of Wolfowitz telling us that Bush's friends need more money!

[struggle4progress]

24. They're determined to spend the US into bankruptcy ...

under a cloak of lies.

[Postman]

25. "Iraqs oil wealth will pay for this war and relatively soon"....

--- Wolfowitz before the invasion.

When does he leave?

[robbedvoter]

26. The money pit - like auto mechanics... or funeral directors -pathetic!

[Darranar]

27. Hmm...

how long does Wolfowitz think we're going to stay there?

They're planning operations in '05, beyond February and March?

After elections are supposed to happen?

LONG after there's supposed to be stability there?

[rebellious woman]

28. Captain Queeg ? Is that right?