Thursday, September 11, 2003
Trust us!
In detailing its request for $87bn (€77bn, £55bn) to fund the "war on terrorism" for the forthcoming year, the White House budget office said this week that a vast majority of those funds - $51bn - would go directly to military operations in Iraq.
It noted that $800m of that spending would go to coalition members who cannot afford to deploy their own troops. An additional $300m would go to new life-saving body armour; and $140m to heavily armoured Humvees to protect its soldiers.
But apart from those few details, the Bush administration has been tight-lipped about where the huge sums - which come on top of $62bn appropriated for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in April - are going. Because Iraq military efforts are being funded outside the normal appropriations process, in so-called "supplemental" or emergency spending bills, the funding does not go through the same rigorous congressional oversight to which normal Pentagon spending is subject annually.
What's that word? Oh yeah, accountability.
posted by chris at 1:14 PM
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