Army to Rumsfeld: Budget is Billions Short
The L.A. Times reports:
The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.
The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.
The Army's budget this year is $98,2 billion. Next year Schoomaker projects it will need a 41% increase to $138.8 billion. That's way too much money and just another reason we should start bringing troops home and let the Iraqis deal with their civil war. Without our unwanted intervention, they'll figure it out. Let's use the $98.2 billion budget money for reparations resulting from damage we've caused to Iraq and its citizens and for the medical, mental health and vocational benefits our returning vets surely will need instead of continuing to wage an unnecessary, futile war and cause more damage.
When do we admit Bush's vision of democracy in Iraq was a bad acid trip?
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