The President said last night, we will no longer hide its price -- the price of the two wars . . .

[bigtree]

Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, 2/25/2009: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Briefing-by-White-House-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-2-25-2009/


Q To follow up on Chip's talking about Afghanistan. The President said last night, we will no longer hide its price -- the price of the two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet at the Pentagon today, Geoff Morrell, the spokesman, said there will be a supplemental in 2010 for war costs. And the Pentagon frequently asserts that the reason there are supplementals is not to hide the cost, but because it is impractical and difficult, if not impossible, to fully predict the cost of ongoing military operations.

First of all, do you agree there will have to be a supplemental in 2010, the President's first budget under his signature? And second of all, do you at least have some comment or evaluation of the necessity at times to supplementally fund ongoing military operations -- and that doesn't necessarily constitute hiding the cost.

MR. GIBBS: Well, I will check on supplementals, in terms of going forward. I don't think that -- I think you'll see in the President's budget that he considers honest and transparent, while it may not be a perfect accounting of what one might ultimately find, I think you'll find an effort, a good effort to denote in that budget that there will be costs.

I think it's hard to -- I mean, take for instance, in previous budgets in which we've had troops in Iraq there's been no accounting for any of that spending in that budget. Now, that's either -- you could say, I guess, if you wanted to, that there was some delineation of the complexity of budgeting that number, or you could be surprised we had troops in Iraq. I think that's hard to posit, given what happened over the last seven years. The President believes --

Q So the administration will try to come up with a number, but not necessarily assert that that is the only number?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President will come up with what he believes is an honest number that accounts for, as best he and the team can come up with, an overall spending number for our overseas commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

But again, I just want to make the point, there -- I'll give you the point on supplementals in terms of understanding, again, that it might be hard to throw a dart and hit the exact number on a board that accompanied the exact total of spending in that fiscal year. But there wasn't -- there wasn't even a picking up of the dart and throwing it at the board. There was just a -- I assume their hands were not unlike mine, saying, well, there's no accounting for it in the budget. I think that was -- would not have met the President's commitment to open and honest budgeting.

[elizfeelinggreat]

1. The sunshine treatment

is the best disinfectant!

(It's a favorite saying in our family and I was glad to hear it said by someone by the Administration recently, wish I could remember who said it - VP Biden maybe?)

[leftstreet]

2. Not sure I get the dartboard analogy

[bigtree]

3. I think he's saying the last administration didn't even try and get the number right

I was struck by the muddled answer.

They may well make a more accurate estimate at budget time and it looks like they will try and avoid funding the occupations exclusively through the supplemental appropriations. But, I'm left expecting the same process where, later, they come hat in hand to further and continue the occupation while many expect the funds already appropriated to be used to bring it to an end.

There should be some finality to the process of appropriations to Iraq, as this is the most effective way Congress has to influence the longevity, scope, and breadth of further operations there.

[stillcool]

4. Some interesting articles here...

on the military budget. Seems like an enormous money laundering operation to me.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Military_Budget/Cost_Iraq_Afghan_Wars.html
So, You Think You Know the Cost of the Wars?
by Winslow Wheeler, CDI Straus Military Reform Project Director
The Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Informaton, September/October 2006

In short, nobody in the executive branch or Congress can reliably say what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost, nor the exact number of troops deployed for them. Various entities have different estimates that vary by tens of billions of dollars and thousands of people; they cannot even agree on the dollars publicly appropriated by Congress. Also, there is no reliable record for how the Pentagon planned to spend the money appropriated to it by Congress, and there is no record whatsoever for how it was actually spent.
Students of DOD finances over the years will understand this unhappy fact as just one more example of the Defense Department's failure to comply, as most other federal agencies have already done, with generally accepted laws, regulations, and practices for financial management. According to the discussion in the hearing, this problem has been with us since 1947.
Under the banner of "support for the troops," Congress has been heaving hundreds of billions of dollars at DOD, but it has not made a public record of how much it has appropriated for the wars, and it has not required DOD to keep any competent records either. These problems caused some uncomplimentary comments at the July 18 hearing, but no plan for remedial action was decided upon.
What would seem to be a laudable exercise of congressional oversight has actually become a painful example of how little oversight there actually is.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_Budget_2005.html

But in 1999, Mr. Tenet reversed that policy, and budgets since then have remained classified with the support of the courts. Last year, a federal judge refused to order the C.I.A. to release its budget totals for 1947 to 1970 - except for the 1963 budget, which Mr. Aftergood showed had already been revealed elsewhere.
In court and in response to inquiries, intelligence officials have argued that disclosing the total spying budget would create pressure to reveal more spending details, and that such revelations could aid the nation's adversaries.

[bigtree]

5. Panetta at CIA may shed some light on their expenditures

I'm looking at Sen. Kerry's priorities for Pakistan funding . . .


Kerry, who wants to triple US non-military aid to Pakistan to 7.5 billion dollars over five years, also endorsed a new US think tank report calling for an immediate increase on top of that amounting to four to five billion dollars per year from Washington and its European partners.

"Time is running out," the Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic White House hopeful said at a press conference to back the Atlantic Council's call for a new, comprehensive approach to Western relations with Pakistan.

The council estimates that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's government has somewhere between six and 12 months to enact successful security and economic policies or face the prospect of collapse.

"There is still time for us to be able to help the new civilian government, turn around its economy, stabilize the political system, and address the insurgency" festering in eastern tribal lands on the Afghan border, said Kerry


read: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNQ12YZSf7sdGm_MhwCUzgWvzmaQ

[unhappycamper]

6. "nor the exact number of troops deployed for them"

Now this statement interests me.

Before the 'surge' the US had 132,000 boots on the ground in Iraq. The surge is over and we have 150,000 boots on the ground in Iraq. After we 'leave' Iraq we will have somewhere between 30,000 ~ 50,000 boots on the ground in Iraq. These numbers are from articles from the Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, Air Force Times, Stars and Stripes and military.com and have been posted to the Veterans forum. Something seems a tad fishy.

Additionally, getting good $$$ numbers for weapons systems and military equipment is obscure now as it was under dubya. :shrug:

Oh BTW - the occupations for another 18 months will cost over $233 billion. (60 (seconds) * 1440 (minutes per day) * 30 (avg. days in month) * 18 (months) * 5,000 (dollars per second) )