Bush resists disclosure of Iraq war spending - will not be part of the Federal Budget

Bush resists disclosure of Iraq war spending - will not be part of the Federal Budget
By Caroline Daniel andKrishna Guha in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: December 13 2006 02:00 | Last updated: December 13 2006 02:00


The Bush administration is unlikely to accept the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group to include all Iraq war spending in its budget request for 2008 but may be willing to compromise on being more specific about the costs of the war.

The ISG report sharply criticised the way the administration accounted for the war, noting that most of the costs emerged in emergency supplemental appropriations, bypassing the normal budget review and scrutiny by authorising committees. "The public interest is not well served" by this approach, it said, and called for the costs of the war to be "included in the president's annual budget, starting in 2008".

A senior administration official was sceptical of the ISG's suggestions. "I wish they could have talked about it in more practical terms," he said. While the ISG effort was "generally helpful, practically speaking it is hard for the military to tell you in advance what the conditions are likely to be and what funding needs will be".

Even so, the official suggested "there is a compromise here on a practical way to scrub the emergency spending to see what is more like base spending… Some of the items in the supplemental and in the bridge [a provisional allocation of funds for the war] could be characterised as base spending because they are of a more permanent nature".

In its mid-session review in July, faced with earlier criticism, the administration said it expected to ask for $110bn (€83bn, £56bn) in spending on the "war on terror", including Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of its 2007 budget submission, an unprecedented move to include anticipated war costs in budget estimates.

"I thought we did a better job last year but we can do more in showing those costs," the official said.

An aide on the House budget committee said Democrats would push for more transparency. "We have consistently said that the war costs should be reflected in the budget. They moved in this direction in July but it is still less than half what it is likely to cost."

On Social Security, where previous reform efforts have stalled, the administration is expected next year to make another push.

The official was optimistic about progress. "I feel better about it, based on hearing directly from Democrats who have said they are interested. We have a window of opportunity of one year."

In January, President George W. Bush called for a bipartisan commission on Social Security but the effort ran aground. The idea may be revived as a way to resolve the harder political questions posed by wider entitlement reform, addressing Medicare and Medicaid spending, but Social Security reform is likely to be addressed without a new commission.