Obama Asks Pelosi to Pave Way for Troop IncreasePresident Barack Obama on Thursday asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to attach amendments to the fiscal 2010 Defense spending bill to increase the Army by 15,000 troops.
The troop increase carries a price tag of nearly $1 billion, but the administration’s amendments offset the costs by reallocating funds from lower-priority DOD contingency operations, Obama says in a letter to the Speaker. The Defense bill passed the House last month but awaits Senate action — and, likely, a subsequent conference committee .
“Expanding the Army to 562,400 troops in 2010 will reduce stress and strain on soldiers and families,” said Obama. “I am committed to supporting our troops and will continue to promote policies that maintain their high level of readiness and that improve the quality of life of servicemembers and their families.”
The additional 15,000 troops are part of an overall increase of 22,000 Army troops that Defense Secretary Robert Gates says is needed over the next three years.
Obama is on thin ice with anti-war Democrats in the House, who say they have given the president all the money he can expect to get for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unless he can demonstrate progress toward ending the conflicts . . .
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White House Asks Congress To Allow for Expansion of Army
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=cqmidday-000003191694What happened to any effort to reduce our military footprint abroad? I would expect our Democratic administration to shed many of the manufactured military missions from the last president's term and, in turn, reduce the burden on the existing forces, but they look intent on escalating them instead (to 'win the peace?'). I realize Mr. Obama had argued during his campaign for the increase in the Army ranks he's petitioning Congress for in the present budget, but it's a naive or miscalculated judgment that an escalation of force(s) will bring an end to the self-perpetuating cycle of attacks and reprisals in their festering occupations. This request for more troops is an acknowledgment by the Obama WH that there won't be any substantial change in the militarism he once told voters he thought was ill-conceived and unnecessary. The president seems either resigned to war without end, settling for the pipe dream we were sold by the last administration (and other famous militarists) that all we need to do is double down on the violence to bring it to a close. We need to do something other than just pile more kindling on the fires they're deliberately provoking with their Afghanistan escalation of force.
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