War funds request doubled to $189 billion

Administration officials yesterday told a Senate panel that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan would cost $189 billion in 2008, a spending request that Democrats eyed for their next challenge to President Bush”s war policy.

The request is more than double the $90 billion war supplemental for fiscal 2007 that the Democrat-led Congress begrudgingly approved in May after a monthslong standoff with the White House.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged the Democrat-led Congress to approve the request “as quickly as possible and without excessive and counterproductive restrictions.”

Senate Democrats, who this month failed repeatedly to legislate a U.S. pullout from Iraq in the 2008 Defense authorization bill, vowed that the war-spending bill will not be a blank check.

“This committee will not rubber-stamp every request that is submitted by the president,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

The pressure on Democrats from their antiwar base was evident at the hearing, which was repeatedly disrupted by members of the feminist antiwar group Code Pink. When outgoing Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace repeated his religious opposition to homosexuality, they began shouting “bigot” and Mr. Byrd ordered police to clear the room.

A growing bloc of Democrats are willing to make the politically risky move to cut off or restrict war funds to force a pullout from Iraq.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois were among 28 Democrats last week to support a failed bid to restrict war funds in the defense bill.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, who also voted for the funding restriction last week, told Mr. Gates that she voted for past war supplementals to show support for troops but was losing patience with the 4½-year-old Iraq war.

“I think a long-term commitment is something that is very questionable for a lot of us,” she said.

Mr. Gates assured her that the president”s plan to start a limited withdrawal from Iraq by Christmas and reduce the force from 160,000 troops to about 130,000 troops by summer would put the U.S. “on a path toward a smaller presence.”

Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte addressed the Iraqi governments” failure at national reconciliation, a chief criticism from Democrats who say the U.S. is mired in Iraq”s civil war. He said the Iraqis were making halting progress.

“Yes, it is hard work, but I don”t think it is hopeless,” he told the panel.

The new supplemental bill, if approved, would boost the total cost of the war to about $650 billion.

The Senate, spurred by concern over failures of Iraqi”s fledgling government, yesterday overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding resolution calling for separating Iraq”s warring sects into Kurdish, Sunni and Shi”ite regions under a weak federal government.

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