Democrats Plan to Take Control of Iraq Spending

By CARL HULSE
Published: December 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 — Frustrated by the Bush administration’s piecemeal financing of the Iraq war, Democrats are planning to assert more control over the billions of dollars a month being spent on the conflict when they take charge of Congress in January.

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The lawmakers, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, said the administration’s approach of paying for extended military operations and related activities through a series of emergency requests had inhibited Congressional scrutiny of the spending and obscured the true price of the war.

“They have been playing hide-the-ball,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that does not serve the Congress well nor the country well, and we are not going to continue that practice.”

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Others say the emergency measures, known as supplemental appropriation requests, can become vehicles for lawmakers to win speedy approval of their own, unrelated pet projects. Members of Congress say the Pentagon has also increasingly seen the war measures as a route to winning financing for projects that should be subject to normal review. And there are complaints that the administration’s approach masks the true cost of the war by not providing a clear bottom line number and by not calculating such related expenses as increased veterans care and military equipment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/washington/14budget.html?hp&ex=1166158800&en=34d5ab863b03423c&ei=5094&partner=homepage