News

The
withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow for a reduced US
defense budget in 2012 but the war in Afghanistan stll costs the United
States close to 300 million dollars a day.
Under the Pentagon's
proposed budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will drop
to $117.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, a reduction of 41.5 billion from
the previous year.

As the US war effort winds down in Iraq, the
budget sets aside $10.6 billion for "Operation New Dawn," with the
remaining 50,000 US troops there due to withdraw by the end of 2011.

Spending for the Afghan mission calls for $107.3 billion, down slightly from the last budget, which requested $113.5 billion.

President Barack Obama has vowed to start a withdrawal in July of the roughly 97,000 troops now in Afghanistan.

The
budget released Monday offered no insight into the scale of the planned
drawdown, with the Pentagon's budget document assuming an average of
98,250 troops on the ground by the end of 2012.

Gates said the
Pentagon had "decided to budget conservatively" as it was too soon to
predict how many troops would be withdrawn after July.

"But that's not to say that we will have 98,000 troops at the end of FY 2012. In fact it's a lead pipe cinch we won't."

The
budget for Afghanistan and Iraq includes $79.2 billion for operations,
$... >>>