At a press conference last month, the president said Congress has one, and only one, role to play in shaping war policy: handing over big bags of money, with no questions asked and no strings attached. “Let me make sure you understand what I’m saying,” Bush said. “Congress has all the right in the world to fund. That’s their main involvement in this war, which is to provide funds for our troops.”
With that in mind, the president is poised to demand that his ATM pony up once again.
President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.
The request — which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.
The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.
That last point is perhaps the most politically salient. For all the talk from war supporters that we should just “wait and see what Gen. Petraeus has to say in mid-September,” the White House already knows what he’s going to say — the Bush gang is going to write his report. And wouldn’t you know it, they’re going to write up a glowing assessment that insists that everything is going well. Congress, the thinking goes, wouldn’t dare withhold $50 billion after Petraeus boasts of all kinds of “progress,” right?
Of course, “progress” means more of the same, more of the same means a longer “surge,” and a longer surge means more money for a policy that doesn’t work.
It’s quite a price tag.
Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. […]
The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week.
The WaPo added, “The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress.”
In other words, this is yet another opportunity for lawmakers. Will Congress keep writing blank checks? I’m not at all optimistic. The last couple of fights haven’t gone well — which is to say, they failed — and I don’t see any evidence that Republicans have suddenly grown sensible over the last few months.
The GOP will stick together, Bush will threaten to veto anything that isn’t exactly to his liking, and just enough Dems will give in to deliver the White House yet another “victory.” I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve seen this show before and I’ve seen how it ends.