Inside Defense
Dec. 18, 2009 -- The Defense Department is preparing a $163.1 billion war-cost spending request for fiscal year 2011, a previously unreported figure that would finance the continuing drawdown of U.S. units from Iraq and sustain the surge of American forces in Afghanistan, according to Pentagon officials.
If approved by Congress, the FY-11 “overseas contingency operations” spending proposal would bring the price tag for the wars in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, and Iraq, which began in 2003, to more than $1.2 trillion, according to Pentagon budget documents.
The FY-11 war cost spending request -- due to be submitted to Congress in February along with the Pentagon's annual base budget plan -- was prepared as DOD officials continue to work with the White House Office of Management and Budget to hammer out a total price tag for overseas operations in FY-10, which began Oct. 1.
The Obama administration in February requested $130 billion for FY-10 war costs. Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said $30 billion to $35 billion more would be required in FY-10 to pay for the 30,000 troops President Obama has ordered to Afghanistan.
“This is still a work in progress,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Dec. 16. “We're still trying to determine the precise costs associated with surging these additional forces into theater.”
In May, the White House Office of Management and Budget set aside a $50 billion “placeholder” in the FY-11 budget request to allow the military services, the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense more time to refine anticipated costs for operations that will not begin being executed until October 2010.
In August, the military services presented FY-11 war cost spending requests that totaled $137 billion, estimates that did not include contributions to fund the new Afghanistan strategy (DefenseAlert, Oct. 20).
Sources say the war cost request would finance a portion of the $2.5 billion bill associated with temporarily increasing the size of the Army by 22,000 troops that Gates directed this summer.
According to budget documents on the Pentagon comptroller's Web site, the Pentagon in FY-01 requested $13 billion for the war in Afghanistan and $17 billion in FY-02 for the same mission. In FY-03, costs grew to $72 billion to pay for the invasion of Iraq and the first months of the initial occupation. War costs continued to grow in FY-04 to $91 billion, in FY-05 to $76 billion and in FY-06 to $116 billion, according to the DOD budget documents.
In FY-07, President Bush ordered a surge of U.S. forces to Iraq, pushing war costs to $166 billion. In FY-08, a massive industrial effort to field a new fleet of armored trucks resistant to roadside bombs helped propel war cost spending to $187 billion.
In FY-09, the incoming Obama administration applied new scrutiny to the Pentagon's war cost requests, which totaled $145 billion. -- Jason Sherman
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