Pentagon: Bush to request for $70 bln to fund wars in 2009

President George W. Bush will ask for 70 billion U.S. dollars approved by Congress to fund Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the fiscal year 2009, the Defense Department said on Monday.

According to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, the White House would submit the request on war funding next week, probably the only one before Bush's presidency ends in January, 2009, leaving the rest of the job to next administration.

"We will ask for 70 billion dollars in an emergency allowance to support global war on terror in 2009," Whitman said.

The war funding request will be sent to Congress along with the administration's request for the regular Pentagon budget for fiscal 2009, which starts on Oct. 1, 2008, which is seen to fuel tension between the White House and Democrats-dominated Congress on war policies.

The congressional Democrats has longtime criticized Bush's administration for compromising domestic programs to war spending, which, according to a congressional report released last week, has reached 691 billion dollars since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Iraq war, alone, has consumed 440 billion dollars, the report said.

The war fund in the 2008 fiscal year underwent a fierce and long-term battle in Washington, with 190 billion dollars that Bush has asked for still unapproved at Congress.

However, the legislature body green lighted a 70-billion-dollar "bridge fund" in partial war funding for the current fiscal year, which as Democrats said should be enough to sustain the U.S. military operations until around May or June. Link