By now, it's clear that the U.S. won't be withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year in any substantial way, whatever President Obama says about July as the start of a conditions-based transition blah blah blah. But the money for those troops' missions? That's a different story. The Pentagon's request for Afghan war cash next year could go down by more than a third. Which could not only force some austerity on the Afghan operation, it could set up a fight between Gen. David Petraeus and the White House, too.
For the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in October, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants $117 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's down about a quarter from the $159 billion that Gates requested for fiscal 2011, already underway, Bloomberg budget ace Tony Capaccio reports. In some ways, the dip makes sense; all American troops are supposed to pull out of Iraq during the upcoming fiscal year. But even so, that means funding for the Afghanistan war starts to drop in October.
To see why, check out a war-funding breakdown (.pdf) prepared in September by the Congressional Research Service's Amy Belasco. Belasco does what so few do: disaggregates the costs of each war. According to her, Gates wants $119.4 billion through October for the Afghan war; that's up from $104.9 billion for fiscal '10. But, like Bruce Springsteen, that Afghan cashpile is on a downbound train.
The full 2012 figures won't be out until early next month. But let's be conservative and assume that Gates devotes just a quarter of next year's overall conflict budget to Iraq. (After all, the last phase of the Iraq war coincides with the first quarter of fiscal 2012.) That would leave about $88 billion for Afghanistan -- down $31 billion from the 2011 budget. It's still a lot of money, sure, but U.S. troops there are still going to have to shoulder a massive burden in 2012.
Consider: the U.S. has about 98,000 troops in Afghanistan. Gen. David Petraeus, the war's commander, told Danger Room in August that his plan for drawing down troops after the Obama administration's July 2011 "transition" date won't involve many outright withdrawals, but rather moving troops from less-dangerous areas to more-dangerous ones, at least at first.
To put it mildly, very few analysts expect the war's fortunes to look much better later this year than they do now, so there's still a lot of war to be waged under the administration's plans. Efforts at getting Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons proceed slowly. The war in the south remains tough and there are signs that the Taliban is growing stronger in the north and west. And commanders anticipate a need to boost the size of the Afghan army and police, an expensive plan that the White House isn't fully on board with, if the Afghans are to take over lead security duties by 2014. That's supposed to be America's ticket... if not out, then to a reduction in troop levels.
Maybe this budget reflects White House wishful thinking, that troops really will come home from Afghanistan. Maybe it's an old school, Rumsfeld-era fiscal trick of asking for less war money up front, and then demanding it later in the troops' name. Maybe Capaccio's ordinarily-bankable reporting is off.
If it's accurate, however, expect legislators to grill Gates on how that's an adequate amount of funding. Then expect them to draw Petraeus into the fray when he arrives on Capitol Hill later this year. Drawing daylight between Obama and Petraeus is a frequent goal of Hill Republicans, though they've not gotten much so far. Petraeus is too savvy to reject Obama's war budget outright, but he might lard his support with enough caveats to be politically troublesome for Obama. How much is that worth to you, Mr. President?
Photo: U.S. Central Command
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