Trillion-dollar war: Afghanistan and Iraq set to cost more than

[slipslidingaway]

Vietnam and Korea

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3090340.ece

"President George Bush will have spent more than $1 trillion on military adventures by the time he leaves office at the end of next year, more than the entire amount spent on the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

There are also disturbing signs that Mr Bush is preparing an attack on Iran during his remaining months in office. He has demanded $46bn (£22.5bn) emergency funds from Congress by Christmas and included with it a single sentence requesting money to upgrade the B-2 "stealth" bomber.

By wrapping his request in the flag of patriotism, the President has made it very difficult even for an anti-war Congress to refuse the money. He was accompanied by the family of a dead US marine when he made the request for funds on Monday...

This weekend Vice-President Dick Cheney stepped up the rhetoric, warning of "serious consequences" if Iran refuses to stop enriching uranium and said the US would not permit it to get nuclear weapons. Iran denies that the enrichment is linked to a nuclear weapons programme and says it is entirely peaceful...

Mr Bush's request for an extra $46bn in funds by Christmas has angered Congress, but it is expected to be approved..."

[AllyCat]

1. Wait a minute...upgrade the B-2 bomber?

Has the American news media reported this at all? I've not heard a REASON for the extra $46B, just assumed he could get it from our complicit Congress who will deliver the money on a silver platter, with pomp and circumstance, and probably a chorus line.

And this extra is to upgrade the B-2 bomber? God, this man is a catastrophe. An utter menace to society.

And we have to learn this from the British press?

[MetaTrope]

2. The "upgrade" involves B-2 flight training for Blackwater employees

[slipslidingaway]

3. Pentagon: B-2 bomber to carry 30,000-lb bomb

My knowledge of weapons registers a zero :(

There are some articles, I remember reading several months ago that certain planes were being outfitted to carry larger bombs

:shrug:

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/2007/10/24/127964/Pentagon:-B-2.htm

"The Defense Department's new Iraq war funding request proposes upgrading the B-2 stealth bomber to carry the military's largest satellite-guided bomb capable of penetrating deeply buried bunkers.
The new 30,000-pound bomb is six times bigger than the Air Force's current 5,000-pound bunker-buster. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is developing the bomb for the Pentagon agency that researches technology to counter weapons of mass destruction. The bomb was first successfully detonated in March...

The Pentagon's proposal is one sentence in the measure seeking US$45.9 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that President George W. Bush gave to Congress Tuesday. The extra money would be on top of US$150.5 billion in previously requested war spending...

The bomb is being developed under a program started by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as part of efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration highlighted the problem of what officials called "hard and deeply buried targets" in January 2002 when it released a new doctrine calling for aggressive action against suspected weapons sites, said James Russell, co- director at the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California...

Russell said one of those suspected super-hardened facilities is Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz that's said to be buried 30 to 50 feet underground "and surrounded by thick walls that make it difficult to hit."