WASHINGTON -- As Operation Iraqi Freedom moves into its fifth
day, President George W. Bush is preparing to ask Congress to
provide $80 billion to cover the costs of war.

The timing of the war came right as the U.S. Senate was
considering the 2004 budget based on Bush's budget plan that
included the $726 billion tax cut plan. The Senate changed the tax
cut proposal to $626 billion, saving $100 billion to cover the
possible cost of war.

The Congressional Budget Office projects deploying troops for
the war will cost $14 billion. The war itself will cost around $10
billion during the first month and $8 million for each month after
the conflict.

U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., criticized Bush for not releasing
cost figures for the war when the Senate is working on the budget.
He said it is "preposterous" to debate the budget while the war
cost "hangs out there, totally unaddressed."

War cannot be budgeted into government spending like other
agencies can, said Rachel Oliphant, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Don
Nickles, R-Okla. Nickles is chairman of the Senate Budget
Committee.

"You can't plan for war," Oliphant said.

Bush's administration wanted to keep flexibility to cut the
monetary request if Iraq's Republican Guards do not resist.

U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., would be one of the first to
see the money requests. He sits on the House Appropriations
Committee, serving as chairman of the Transportation and Treasury
Appropriations Subcommittee.

Istook's office said there will probably be little debate over
the request, expecting the money to be approved quickly.

The money should be approved with little change in request, said
U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, D-Okla.

"When it comes to national security, you've got to support it
wholeheartedly," Carson said.

He said he fears some congressmen will try to slip in other
costs not related to the war.

Prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Congressional Budget
Office projected a $17 billion and a $35 billion war cost. After
the war, Robert Reischauer, director of the CBO, said the price tag
for the war ran around $45 billion, excluding postwar costs of
maintaining troops in the region.
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