Baghdad budget increases arms cash

[Aimster]

Iraq's US-backed interim government is to spend over $2.2 billion on its security forces, a sum that represents some 11% of the country's total budget.


Speaking at a Baghdad news conference on Tuesday, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Iraq needed to equip the police and army with "new modern weaponry that will enable them to protect the country".

"We have therefore decided to earmark $2.2 billion for this purpose." The sum represents about 11% of the total projected expenditures for 2005 of $19.5 billion.

"This sum will grow gradually. The army will be the lynchpin of the security forces. We have decided to concentrate on modernising its weapons. We've already started to do that."

Allawi said he wanted to equip Iraq with an air force and boost the strength of the military from the current 66,000 personnel to 150,000, about the level of US troops currently in the country.

The interim PM's comment comes as two more members of his Iraqi National Accord party were killed in the last 24 hours. Some 22 of his political supporters have been shot dead in the last two months, according to party official Imad Shibib.

 

[GrGr]

How can Allawi make policy decisions like that 3 weeks before the elections?

 

[conjur]

Military facing wide budget gap with Halliburton; Overruns of $4 billion
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=15

Military facing wide budget gap with Halliburton; Overruns of $4 billion

Future Halliburton spending exceeds budget estimates by $4b

The top U.S. commander in Baghdad has cited an ?unaffordable? budget gap of at least $4 billion between what Halliburton says it will cost to provide food, housing and other services for U.S. GIs for a year and what the government has budgeted, the (paid-restricted) Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday.

The difference dramatizes the cost crunch facing the Pentagon as the bill for the U.S. involvement in Iraq continues to escalate well beyond initial White House estimates. Before the war began in March 2003, the administration said it would cost about $60 billion. The price tag is now more than three times that figure, and growing. President Bush is expected to soon send to Congress an $80 billion supplemental spending bill, largely to cover Iraqi operations, pushing the tab for the current fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, to $105 billion.

In December, Halliburton?s giant Kellogg Brown & Root unit, which provides basic services such as food, postal service and telephones to the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, submitted a detailed estimate to the Pentagon for expected spending in the year starting May 1. The company said its costs for the year could exceed $10 billion.

But the Army has budgeted just $3.6 billion to support the KBR-provided services during the same period ? $7 billion less than KBR?s estimate. Since then, the Army has been trimming its requests to close the gap. In an interview, Gen. George Casey said the difference now stands at closer to $4 billion.

Army officials suggest that ultimately their wish list of services for troops will have to be further slashed, though it?s not clear how much basic services will be reduced for soldiers ? or even how much they can be without causing significant disruptions.

Officials say they also may end up pushing inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill for more money to pay for troop support.

Gen. Casey said in an interview last week that he still was trying to determine whether the spiraling costs reflected in KBR?s estimate are due to a spike in proposed

charges by KBR or a substantial increase in requests by the Army.

But several factors are clearly contributing broadly to escalating costs. Among them is the stubborn insurgency that has boosted the expense of transportation and security. Another factor is the U.S. move to increase troop strength in Iraq to 150,000 before and during this week?s election, which put in place substantially more troops currently than had been expected in earlier planning.

The current flap follows a series of dust-ups between the Pentagon and Halliburton, its main contractor in Iraq, over proper bookkeeping and pricing for the company?s work in Iraq.

Halliburton set for a nice Q1
http://www.forbes.com/markets/...1automarketscan13.html

 

[dahunan]

Why does Allawi sound like a puppet?