Report Says Bush Downplays Costs of Troop Increase

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From Truthout:

Report Says Bush Downplays Costs of Troop Increase
By Thomas D. Williams
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 02 February 2007

President George W. Bush's repeated statements of the need for 21,500 more combat troops in Iraq to quell the violence in Baghdad and in Anbar Province don't begin to give the full picture, a new Congressional Budget Office report reveals.

The startling report, issued Thursday by Budget Office Director Peter R. Orszag, said ordinarily another 27,500 troops would be necessary to support the additional 21,500 combat forces Bush featured in his talks to the nation. The budget office estimates range from 15,000 to 28,000 support troops that will be needed to back up the 21,500 mentioned by the administration.

"Army and DOD officials have indicated that it will be both possible and desirable to deploy fewer additional support units than historical practice would indicate," the budget report says. " expects that, even if the additional brigades required fewer support units than historical practice suggests, those units would still represent a significant additional number of military personnel."

But, at a news briefing Friday morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted the budget report highly exaggerates both the numbers of support troops needed and their costs. "The study, I think, dramatically overstates both the cost and the personnel." He explained that Defense Department cost estimates for the surge are through September or through the end of fiscal year 2007, while the budget office estimate extends through fiscal year 2009.

However, the Thursday letter from Budget Director Orszag gave varying scenarios of time for the recently ordered 21,500 troop deployment, including periods from four months to twelve months. The office covered a wide variety of possibilities and made cost estimates for all of them. It supplied a chart that covered various time frames, short of and up to the year 2009. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020207S.shtml