WASHINGTON, 1 September 2003 — Lawmakers pressed US President George W. Bush yesterday to spell out the cost to Americans of the occupation of Iraq, which a leading Republican said would top $30 billion over five years for operations alone.
Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the $30 billion was in addition to ongoing military costs that have been running about $4 billion a month. “That’s the target,” Lugar told the “Fox News Sunday” program. “That’s about what the budget was... during the Saddam days, just to run the country.”
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in an editorial that it was important the administration be explicit about what is going to be required. “America’s mission in Iraq is too important to fail. Given the stakes, we cannot launch this ‘generational commitment’ to changing the Middle East on the cheap,” McCain wrote in The Washington Post.
“The administration should level with the American people about the cost and commitment required to transform Iraq,” McCain said. The demands on Bush intensified as he returned to Washington from a month-long stay at his Texas ranch. The vacation has been marred by violence in Iraq including Friday’s bombing in Najaf, which killed a top Shiite leader, and the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Administration officials have said Bush may ask Congress to provide an additional $2 billion over the short term for Iraq and some congressional sources are expecting a push for an emergency spending bill for Iraq of $20 billion or more this year instead of waiting until next year. Congress passed a $60 billion emergency spending bill in April for the US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lugar said the high price tag for operations, only half of which will be funded by the sale of Iraqi oil, would require “our going to the international community in a big way.”
He said Bush needs to come before the US Congress when it returns this week to ask for specific funding measures, for both immediate use by the US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, as well as longer term. “He should do that,” Lugar said. “But beyond that, the president ought to sketch out the five-year picture.”
“...The parameters of this, I believe, are going to inhibit Jerry Bremer and the people out there if we are into a bean-counting situation back here,” he added. In addition to seeking international dollars for reconstruction efforts, Bush faces critical decisions also on how to improve security in Iraq, where nearly 140,000 US troops are stationed.
This week the US death toll since he declared major combat over on May 1 surpassed the total of 138 US troops who died during the war to oust Saddam Hussein.
The steadily rising US death toll in Iraq could undermine domestic support for the troops’ mission there, but unease about the body count has not yet prompted most Americans to turn against it, experts say.
Analysts who study the link between US deaths and public support in wartime said such casualties can erode backing for a war, although the extent of the erosion can vary.
