WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama will seek more than 200 billion dollars over the next 18 months to fund US war efforts, US media reported on Thursday.
Obama's request includes 75.5 billion dollars for 2009 to send more US troops to Afghanistan, several US media outlets reported, citing unnamed defense officials.
The president also will ask for 130 billion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan for the 2010 budget to be unveiled Thursday, and set operations in those countries at 50 billion dollars annually in the next several years, the reports said.
The budget proposal Obama was to unveil also would boost income taxes on couples earning more than 250,000 dollars per year jointly from 2010, ending the George W. Bush administration's tax cut for those Americans.
The US military's budget for fiscal year 2009, excluding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stands at 515 billion dollars, the Pentagon said.
When the estimated cost of both wars is added, total defense spending is roughly 650 billion dollars for fiscal year 2009.
For 2008, total spending including the wars reached 670 billion.
Obama plans to send another 17,000 US troops to strife-torn Afghanistan to reverse a grim slide into chaos in the war's eighth year.
He was expected to announce Friday his timetable for drawing down the 140,000 US troops in Iraq over the next 19 months. Obama was widely expected to draw down 90,000 and leave 50,000 US troops in Iraq.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
