Gates seeks more funds

Insurgents are stepping up violence during the holy month of Ramadan.

COMBINED DISPATCHES

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress on Wednesday to approve an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the Bush administration’s 2008 war funding request to nearly $190 billion — the largest single-year total for the wars so far.

The move came as Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff and former top U.S. commander in Iraq, warned lawmakers that the Army is stretched dangerously thin because of current war operations and would probably have trouble responding to a major conflict elsewhere. “The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply,” Casey said Wednesday. “We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies.”

The administration’s funding request, if approved, would boost war spending this year by nearly 15 percent and would bring the total cost of both conflicts to more than $800 billion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service. The request comes two weeks after President Bush announced a limited troop draw-down from Iraq starting in December and the continuation of the troop buildup strategy through next summer. In the days since, congressional Democrats have failed to force a shift in war policy on troop rotations or withdrawal timelines, but the debate over war funding offers another opportunity for opponents to push for a change of course.

Democrats respond

Senate Democrats on Wednesday expressed dismay at the administration’s consistently rising “emergency” requests for war funding, calling it “habit-forming” and open-ended, while others said they believe the wars are breaking the military. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, before which Gates testified, called the war “nefarious” and “infernal.”

“We can not create a democracy at the point of a gun,” Byrd said. “Sending more guns does not change that reality. This committee will not rubber stamp every request that is submitted by the president.”

As lawmakers expressed concern over rising war costs and the strain on U.S. forces, Gates said he believes it is critical to continue the war until conditions on the ground permit a larger draw-down.

“It’s very important that we handle this draw-down in a way that allows us to end up in a stronger position in Iraq in terms of a more stable country, one that is an ally in the war on terror and one that is a blockade to Iranian influence in the region,” Gates said. “I don’t know what that timeline looks like.”

Gates said the additional money is needed to pay for the duration of President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq and to purchase thousands of new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to shield U.S. forces from insurgent bombs.

In Iraq

Meanwhile, insurgents are stepping up a campaign of violence across Iraq during the holy month of Ramadan, staging six car bomb attacks Wednesday that killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

“We have seen an upturn in levels of violence in the last few days,” Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the military’s chief spokesman in Iraq, told reporters. Citing past experience, he said extremists “will continue to increase levels of violence during the period of Ramadan,” which began Sept. 13.

The level of violence during the first two weeks of Ramadan, the military said, was roughly equivalent to 2005, but down 38 percent from last year. Still, the violence illustrates the challenges in stabilizing the country, even as thousands of additional U.S. troops have arrived in Baghdad and surrounding areas this year to stem sectarian tensions and buy time for national reconciliation.

In Internet postings two weeks ago, the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group believed to have been founded by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq, vowed to mount a new offensive during Ramadan that would target among others tribal leaders and officials who have allied themselves with U.S. forces. On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden belt at a reconciliation gathering of Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, killing 24 people, including the city’s police chief.