Congress must pass war funding, Bush says

Congress must pass war funding, Bush says
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Nov 29, 2007 17:42:01 EST

President Bush shifted his sights from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the future needs of the strained military during a visit with top defense officials at the Pentagon on Thursday.

But he spent little time on the topic afterward, instead blasting Congress over its failure to pass a wartime spending bill.

“The missions of this department are essential to saving America’s lives,” Bush said. “And they are too important to be disrupted or delayed or put at risk.

“Pentagon officials have warned Congress that the continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of this department. I ask Congress to provide this essential funding to our troops, before the members leave on their Christmas vacation.”

Bush, who was accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, also reiterated Pentagon complaints that failure to pass his almost $200 billion war funding request for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 means the services will have to begin draining their normal annual operations and maintenance funds to pay for war operations.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Nov. 21 that if a spending bill is not passed, the Army and Marine Corps will run out of money for the wars by mid-February and mid-March, respectively, and the furlough of as many as 200,000 civilian and contract workers could begin a few weeks into January.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_bushpentagon_071129w/