Senate Passes New Pentagon Budget, War Spending Bill

As President Obama considers a major change in strategy in Afghanistan, the Senate passed a bill bringing the total U.S. tab for that war to about $300 billion.

The total $626 billion bill, passed by a 93-7 count, undercuts the President's agenda in closing Guantanamo Bay, forbidding the transfer of any prisoners currently held there to the United State. The bill provides $128 billion for overseas military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and $498 billion for the rest of the Defense Department's budget. This bill will bring the total amount spent in both Iraq and Afghanistan over $1 trillion since the beginning of the conflicts. This winter, Obama approved 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the Pentagon bill approved Tuesday funds that deployment. General Stanley McChrystal has asked for as many as 40,000 additional troops to be deployed to Afghanistan, and should Obama approve that request it would eventually need separate funding in a future war appropriations bill. That is one of the many reasons congressmen from the President's own part have showed skepticism for another troop increase. And there's also ample skepticism in Congress that Obama's Iraq and Afghanistan funding request will be sufficient to last the entire 2010 budget year, which began Oct. 1. A key lawmaker, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., predicts that additional money will be needed next spring. Even with the additional $600 billion, there is widespread skepticism that the money will be enough to fund the wars in the Middle East for even another year. Democratic congressman John Murtha has already gone on record as saying he believes the Pentagon will need more funds as early as the coming spring.