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Bush plea under Congress' microscope

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON SEPT. 9. The Republican and Democratic lawmakers see little trouble in Congress for the Presidential supplemental request of $87 billions for Iraq; at the same time members of the Congress are making it known that this was not going to be granted without some intense questioning of the administration. "This may not be Vietnam, but it sure smells like it. And every time I see these bills coming down for money, it's costing like Vietnam too," said the senior Democratic Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkins.

And then there are the law-makers who question how domestic needs and concerns will be affected at a time when more money is being poured into Iraq and with a budget deficit sky rocketing — hovering around the half a trillion mark. Many wonder if this $ 87 billions is sufficient given what the U.S. is ranged against in that West Asia country. Congress, in April, had already appropriated $79 billions; and the criticism then and now is that this Republican administration had grossly under-estimated the final tab of the operations and reconstruction costs given that the U.S. has been virtually alone in this Iraq `adventure', especially on the financial front. The impression is that when the administration gets ready to send its requisition in a formal sense with the breakdowns in anticipated expenditure, law- makers will be scheduling hearings, closed and open. The hearings will come with a political cost and at a time when the Democrats have already started questioning the administration's Iraq policy.

"It is a huge number ($87 billions), and Congress needs to step up to its constitutional responsibility to vet the request and put as many questions to the President as we can," said a Republican law-maker in the House of Representatives, Zack Wamp. The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar — a moderate Republican — has argued that people will have the time to `vet' but then it was necessary to go ahead with the President's request.

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