Soaring war funding raises concerns about scope of spending

February 2, 2007
Soaring war funding raises concerns about scope of spending

WASHINGTON — Next week, the Bush administration is expected to send Congress what could be one of the largest supplemental spending requests in history — $100 billion or more, primarily for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's supposed to cover basic costs, including personnel, equipment repairs and replacement, ammunition and other directly related operating expenses not covered by the Pentagon's regular annual budget for fiscal year 2007.

But military budget analysts and tax watchdogs say if the past is any indicator, the Pentagon and the Congress will try to load this off-budget shopping cart with expensive new weapons and pork for the voters that has nothing to do with defense or any of the disaster relief that emergency spending bills sometimes fund as well.