US President Barack Obama on Thursday requested another 83.4 billion US dollars from the Congress to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the current fiscal year which ends on Sept. 30.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the president said the requested funds "will be used to support our men and women in uniform as they help the people of Iraq to take responsibility for their own future --and work to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
That amount of money is likely to be the last supplemental request submitted to pay for the wars.
If approved by the Congress, the latest request would bring the running tab for both wars to about 947 billion dollars, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service.
More than three-quarters of the 864 billion dollars appropriated so far has gone to the war in Iraq, where most of the US troops involved in those conflicts have been deployed, the agency estimated.
Since taking office in January, Obama has announced plans to shift troops out of Iraq and beef up US forces in Afghanistan.
The additional money is needed "to fund the new strategy in Afghanistan and fund the process in Iraq that will lead to a drawdown of all of our combat troops," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama said in the letter that about 75 billion dollars of the requested funds would pay for military operations, with the bulk of the rest going to diplomatic programs and development aid.
The request also includes 350 million dollars to upgrade security along the border with Mexico and 400 million dollars to support Pakistan's counter-insurgency efforts.
Obama began including war spending in his 2010 budget, but the Bush administration relied on supplemental spending bills to fund the conflicts.
Last month, Obama announced a plan to withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010.
A residual force of between 35,000 to 50,000 troops will remain until December 31, 2011. There are 142,000 American troops in Iraq now.
Obama has ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops to fight the Taliban in the south and east and 4,000 more to train Afghan troops.
Pelosi said Congress would carefully review Obama's request and "engage in a dialogue with the administration on appropriate benchmarks to measure the success of our investments."
With a strong Democratic majority in Congress, the bill is expected to pass both Senate and the House easily.
The White House said it wants the bill to be ready for Obama's signature by the end of May.
His new request would push the war and diplomatic money approved for 2009 to about 150 billion dollars, down from previous years.
The United States spent some 171 billion dollars for the two wars in 2007 and 188 billion dollars in 2008.
(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2009)
