Still keeping Iraq war money out of official budget reckoning?

[eridani]

If Dahr Jamail is right that Obama is starting that practice again, that is really bad news.

http://www.truthout.org/041309A

Following George W. Bush's example of keeping war funding off the books, President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion in additional "emergency" funding for the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which, if approved, would bring the 2009 funding to around $150 billion and the overall costs of the two wars to nearly $1 trillion.

Obama was a harsh critic of the Bush administration tactic of avoiding placing the costs of both occupations in the overall military budget, yet now he is doing the same. This latest request is in addition to a $534 billion military budget the administration unveiled earlier in the week. That budget was for fiscal 2010, and was an increase over the last Bush administration military budget from 2009.

The move comes on the heels of Obama's surprise visit to Baghdad's airport on April 7, where he met with soldiers whom he praised for their "extraordinary achievement" in Iraq. If he is referencing something good, I must have missed it. But we can certainly point to other examples, each qualifying as an "extraordinary achievement" by the US military in Iraq. That the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has killed over 1.3 million Iraqis is certainly extraordinary. That the occupation has displaced one in six Iraqis from their homes also qualifies as extraordinary. That an entire country could be destroyed and made a worse place to live when compared to when it was ruled by a brutal dictator and suffered 12 years of genocidal sanctions is also extraordinary.

[Hippo_Tron]

1. I've heard that Robert Gibbs said this would be the last Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental

For logistical reasons they are doing a supplemental this year. But from now on it will be part of the budget.

[eridani]

4. It better the hell be

That was one of the things I liked best about his budget proposals--everything on the books.

[SpartanDem]

2. There was no budget for FY 2009

this money covers the wars until Obama's budget is approved.


Yeah this author tolike playing fast and loose with truth "and the president intends on keeping at least 50,000 US troops in Iraq indefinitely," 2011 is not indefinitely.

[FrenchieCat]

3. If you want to believe the worse, that piece should do it.

Doesn't make it accurate, just makes the author good at opining the worse.

The supplemental is because until the Obama budget is passed,
there was not enough passed in 2009, and since Bush was leaving,
he didn't bother to deal with that detail on his way out.