White House lists cuts to pay for more troops
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-03-11-colombia_N.htm?csp=34
BOGOTA, Colombia — President Bush wants to pay for his plan to send
8,200 more U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan by cutting money for
agriculture, education and other programs, budget records show.
Bush's $3.2 billion plan, submitted to Congress over the weekend,
includes 3,500 new troops for Afghanistan to train that nation's army
and to fight the resurgent Taliban.
The plan would also send 4,700 more troops to Iraq to support the 21,500
additional combat troops Bush has already ordered to Baghdad and Anbar
province.
More than $2.5 billion of the request is for Iraq, about $500 million
for Afghanistan. Bush also asked for $100 million for a counterterrorism
program in Pakistan.
New troops in Afghanistan will participate in "training and embedding
missions," Bush told reporters Sunday after a meeting with Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe.
Bush said Sunday that his Jan. 10 announcement that he was committing
21,500 more troops were to Iraq referred only to combat forces.
"Those combat troops are going to need some support," he said. Bush said
he hopes the Democratic-controlled Congress will fund their mission
"without any strings attached."
Some of the deployments can be financed by cutting "lower priority
federal programs," according to a document issued March 9 by the Office
of Management and Budget.
a submission to Congress.
Most affected by the cuts are the departments of Education, Agriculture,
Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.
Some of the offsets come from programs Bush has tried to kill before,
such as the Department of Education's "Enhancing Education Through
Technology" and "Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership" grant
programs.
The newly announced deployment for Afghanistan comes a month after Bush
warned that the Taliban has not given up efforts to reclaim power, more
than five years after the fundamentalist Islamic militia was ousted by
U.S. and allied forces in October 2001. The Taliban had harbored the
al-Qaeda organization that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a budget document, White House budget director Rob Portman said the
deployment in Afghanistan is "in anticipation of increased combat
operations against the resurgent Taliban." National Security Council
spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the troops are "part of the effort to
speed up the training and expand the size of the Afghan forces."
The addition of the 3,500-member training brigade will bring the U.S.
commitment in Afghanistan to 27,000 troops, the highest level in the
more than five years the U.S. military has been in that country.
Last month, Bush called on NATO allies to increase their commitment of
troops to Afghanistan and to lift the restrictions some nations place on
their deployment, all in an effort to root out Taliban strongholds.
Bush submitted the revised budget request in the middle of a five-nation
tour of Latin America
