Bush to seek $70 bln in partial 2009 war funding

By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will ask the U.S. Congress next week for $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and related operations for part of the 2009 fiscal year, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The new request is likely to set up another battle with Democrats who control Congress and are critical of President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war. Congress has yet to approve most of Bush's fiscal 2008 war funding request.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the administration probably will not submit another war funding request after this one before leaving office next January. That would make war funding one of the first issues facing the next president.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Congress has approved $691 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities as Iraq reconstruction, the Congressional Budget Office said last week.

Of the total, the CBO estimated that $440 billion had been spent on the war in Iraq.

The new war request will come on top of the administration's request for the regular Pentagon budget for fiscal 2009, which starts on Oct. 1, 2008.

But the two will be sent to Congress together next Monday as part of Bush's overall budget request.

"We will ask for $70 billion in an emergency allowance to support global war on terror in 2009," Whitman said.