Iraq: Congress seeks more accountability
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| Fri, 05-14-2004 - 1:20pm |
Congress seeks more accountability with Iraq funding.
Administration seeks additional $25 billion.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/14/MNGD46LG7P1.DTL
President Bush's request for $25 billion more to fight the war in Iraq has started moving through Congress, where it is running into bipartisan criticism from members who say the proposal is a blank check they are unwilling to endorse.
Bush's proposal, outlined in a letter to Congress and a brief legislative proposal, calls for creating a "contingent emergency reserve fund'' to help pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and giving the Defense Department almost total leeway in deciding how to spend the money.
The fast-moving proposal was approved Wednesday evening by the House Armed Services Committee, but not before members insisted that Congress have greater say in how the money is spent.
The proposal got its first Senate hearing before the Armed Services Committee on Thursday, where almost every member warned Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that the administration would face a fight unless it ceded some control to Congress.
Virtually every senator who spoke supported the funding itself, which the administration said would go to equip the 138,000 troops in Iraq and the 15, 000 in Afghanistan, two countries where military operations are costing about $5 billion a month.
"If you look at our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's a big bill," Wolfowitz told the panel.
Among the items Wolfowitz said would be funded from the added appropriation are fuel, transportation costs for forces and equipment, maintenance and repairs of equipment that is wearing out at a rapid rate, and more body armor and upgrading armor on humvees.
"Support of this request will ensure that our wonderful men and women in uniform have the tools that they need to continue winning the fight in Iraq,'' Wolfowitz said in his testimony.
But it was clear that after approving supplemental war appropriations of $75 billion last spring and $87 billion last fall, Congress wants much greater Bush administration accounting for the money spent in Iraq, where the prospects of a large and lengthy military engagement are growing greater.
In addition to the $25 billion, which the Pentagon plans to start drawing on when the federal fiscal year starts Oct. 1, the White House has already said it will be back for yet another supplemental appropriation for Iraq early next year, one that probably will top $25 billion.
"Our forefathers would have scorned such arrogance as has been demonstrated by this administration in this request,'' rasped Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., an outspoken opponent of the war. Byrd, the Senate's resident constitutional scholar, held up a copy of the Constitution and quoted from it: "A regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.''
"When we appropriate these funds, we're going to keep in mind this Constitution, and we're going to put limits on this appropriation,'' Byrd said.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, suggested a compromise that Wolfowitz and Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, indicated the administration would at least consider. She said the proposal should be resubmitted as a traditional spending request, with an item-by-item breakdown of costs, or should be part of a new Budget Committee proposal to set up a $30 billion standby account for the Pentagon. When money is needed, the Defense Secretary would send over a specific spending request.
"You don't need this dispute, and I would encourage you to work with the committee to come up with some controls on the spending," Collins said. "We're very eager to move quickly, to give you the funding that you need.''
Wolfowitz, while saying he wants to work with Congress, stressed that the Pentagon needs to spend money quickly to avoid dipping into other accounts and slowing other parts of the military.
"We are not looking for a blank check," he said. "We want flexibility to put funds where they are needed.''
In the House, Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter, R- Alpine (San Diego County), made it clear he was thinking along similar lines as the senators.
His committee's vote "provides the resources along with specificity that Congress has not previously applied to supplemental funds," he said in a statement. "This approach improves congressional oversight and ensures that our view of what is a priority will guide the department's actions.''
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, an Armed Services Committee member, said the vote was a recognition that "the war is going badly. We have no idea where the $87 billion last year went, and we can't be a co-equal branch of government if we give them a blank check.''
The administration isn't calling the current proposal a supplemental budget request because, as Wolfowitz said, it can't accurately predict the Iraq war's costs over the next few months. Costs will depend on how well the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government on June 30 turns out.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also told Wolfowitz that Bush's proposal troubled him. "I don't believe we're playing nearly the role that is our constitutional responsibility,'' he said.
Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va., told Wolfowitz to work out the differences soon because the administration wants quick action on the bill, now that it has finally decided to ask for the money, a step it had resisted taking.
The full House and Senate want to take up the $25 billion request as early as next week.


Finally!
cl-nwtreehugger
Community Leader:
I think this is appropriate.
Anyone who thinks that the $75 million and the subsequent $87 million went in total support of the Iraq/Afghanistan effort is deluding themselves.
There are other non-sanctioned agencies that are getting these monies diverted to them.
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"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- B
Exactly the word that came to my mind.
I don't understand that a 'blank cheque' approach was given in the first place. No business would do that.
But congress is composed of politicians! Remember the Just Trust Me article, the administration, as before, want's to be trusted to distribute the money as it wants. I somehow suspect that you know this, and are pointing out the above difference between businessmen and politicians. Sorry if I am jumping in where I don't belong.
>"I somehow suspect that you know this, and are pointing out the above difference between businessmen and politicians."<
That's right.
You jump in anytime & anywhere you wish. :)