"There's absolutely no way the American people will support that."

Bush seeks $75-billion for Iraq

Washington — U.S. President George W. Bush will seek another $75-billion (U.S.) from Congress to pay the soaring costs of keeping 150,000 troops in Iraq, White House officials said yesterday.

The costs of battling the stubborn and violent insurgency will soon top $200-billion, more than four times the original price tag set by the White House.

The President will seek extra funding of more than $80-billion early next month, White House officials said, but a few billion of the extra money will be earmarked for training Iraqi and Afghan security forces.

Extra funds needed for military operations and humanitarian aid to the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunamis are not yet included.

To date, neither the spiralling death toll, the soaring costs nor the absence of banned weapons in Iraq (the weapons Mr. Bush used to justify the invasion) have seriously sapped U.S. support for the President, who won re-election to a second four-year-term in November.

Although the cost of the Iraq war is now approaching half the total that the United States spent in its decade-long (and ultimately failed and unpopular) war in Vietnam, U.S. military deaths of 1,300 remain tiny compared with the 58,000 killed in Southeast Asia.

But Massachusetts Democrat Marty Meehan predicted the costs, both in blood and bullion, would soon force the White House to redraft its Iraq policy.

"The American people will not support $2-billion a week in Iraq without an exit plan ..... for the next five years," he said. "There's absolutely no way the American people will support that."

Paul Koring, Globe and Mail