The Long Haul in Iraq

Less than a month before the critically important mid-term elections, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, announced that the Army expects to keep the current troop levels in Iraq through 2010.

"It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

Nice analogy. And we American taxpayers can continue to expect Uncle Sam to have a couple of fingers in our wallets and purses.

In another indication of the burden the Army expects to bear, Schoomaker said he believes the Army will need $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $40 billion more than its planned expenditures for the 2007 budget year, which began Oct. 1. Schoomaker's proposed figure is nearly $25 billion more than the initial amount discussed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Crossposted at B3