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s?pid=10000103&sid=a.ITUP8h1gbA&refer=ustp://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a.ITUP8h1gbA&refer=us IRAQ COSTS SURGING: BUSH MAY HAVE TO RESHUFFLE FUNDS.
May 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. military operations in Iraq may be $4 billion over budget by August, forcing President George W. Bush to shift money from other Pentagon accounts or ask Congress for more money before the November election, say Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
``If the tempo of combat stays like it has been since early April, they'll have to increase the troops strength and they'll need a supplemental budget of well over $75 billion,'' said Representative John Murtha, 71, a member of Congress from Pennsylvania since 1974 and the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee panel that approves defense spending.
The monthly cost of the war is approaching $6 billion, at least $2 billion more than Bush projected two months ago, said Senator Lincoln Chafee, 51, a first-term Republican from Rhode Island who is chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee that oversees Iraq. The Pentagon has spent more than $70 billion in Iraq since January 2003, according to data provided by the Pentagon comptroller.
The Pentagon stepped up shipments last week of M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M-16 bullets following insurgencies in Fallujah and cities near Baghdad that pushed the Army and Marines into their fiercest battles since Bush declared an end to major combat a year ago Saturday. At least 128 servicemen were killed in April, the worst monthly toll yet.
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