DND told to keep war costs down

[CD]

DND told to keep war costs down: Source

Dec 02, 2007 03:18 PM
Murray Brewster
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA – National Defence has been warned it will have to cover the costs of the Afghan war entirely out of its own budget next year, without any top-up from the federal Treasury Board, a political source has told The Canadian Press.

The directive went out recently from the Privy Council Office as planning for the 2008 budget reaches its peak, said an official who asked not to be named.

It's part of an increasingly determined effort by the Harper government to assert more civilian control over the military, which has been perceived as having too much leeway in both the conduct of the war and with the public purse, said the official.

At one recent meeting, the source said, political staff groused openly that the Conservatives "have spent $20 billion plus" on the military in new equipment and seen little political "sizzle" for the effort.

The head of the Senate security and defence committee said he's also been told the military was warned it will not receive any additional appropriations beyond its budget envelope.

"They've been told they'll have a flat amount allocated to them and that will include in the cost of Afghanistan, and not to come back for more," said Liberal Senator Colin Kenny.

On Friday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office referred queries about next year's funding to department officials, who in turn said they could not answer the questions that day.

The Conservatives do plan a modest increase to the defence budget in the coming year, according to the federal Treasury Board's supplementary estimates.

Total spending at National Defence is expected to go from $18.3 billion in the current budget year to $19.4 billion in 2008-09.

But Kenny's committee has argued that spending should be in the range of $25 billion.

In the past, the cost of the war in Afghanistan has routinely exceeded the Defence Department's estimates, forcing officials to go back to Treasury Board to ask for additional operating in funds.

In the 2006 budget the additional appropriation added up to $202 million, according to the department's 2006-07 performance report.

It's unclear what the figure will be in the current budget year since officials were unable to provide details Friday. But it's that kind of extra allocation that will end soon, the source emphasized.

MacKay said last week the total operating cost of the war to the military from 2001 to the present was $3.1 billion – a figure that likely doesn't include capital purchases such as armoured patrol vehicles and other major equipment.

Kenny said the Conservatives have thus far failed to provide enough money to fulfill their campaign promise to expand the military and fight the war. Recently the Defence Department conceded that its plans to expand to 75,000 regular members and 35,000 reservists had to be trimmed back because there wasn't enough funding.

In addition, a wide range of military spending has come under the microscope at the political level, said Kenny.

"Offloading the costs of the war on the department will have a major impact on just about everything," he said. "These guys want it both ways.

"They want to have a reputation of being strong on national security and strong on defence. Their idea of being strong is to make PR gestures when they're spending less than (former prime minister Pierre) Trudeau did on defence in terms of (gross domestic product)."

Jay Paxton, a spokesman for MacKay, said in an email that the potential impact of restraining cost-overruns was "hypothetical and we won't speculate." During previous wars the federal government funded military operations separately from the Defence Department's annual budget, using special appropriations.

It was only during the 1960s and the era of peacekeeping that overseas military operations began coming directly out of the department's budget, say defence analysts.

Kenny and many military observers believe the federal government should return to the traditional wartime funding approach, especially if Canada is to remain in Afghanistan past 2009 as the Conservatives suggested in their recent throne speech.

"It's only logical to do that because how else are voters able to evaluate whether the money is well spent?" Kenny asked.

"We all know what the cost in lives and wounded are, but we also need to know what the costs in dollars. And that should be part of equation as we go through the debate about whether Afghanistan is worth it."

Full article here...

[xsbank]

Gee, do ya really think so?

What would happen if you started to fight a war and nobody bothered to pay? Go back to using knives? Morons.

[Nark]

Reason number ONE why I joined the US military when I had the choice of either.

[EI-EIO]

Just like the UK at the moment too. The politicians give the orders but won't pay the bills.

[WJflyer]

Eventually those bills will come back to haunt them if left unpaid... just like unpaid credit card bills for most of you.

[2R]

One study on war costs put the cost of deliverying one round of ammunition to kill one enemy was said to be 51 cents .To kill the same enemy with atomic weapons it was 13 cents .To kill with biologicals and chemicals it was put at 8 cents in 1974 dollars .
So when the politicians have to win and money is running low they will go to self oxidizing biologicals and chemicals as the most cost effective way of killing the enemy .

[Dust Devil]

Reason number ONE why I joined the US military when I had the choice of either.

Keep in mind that it's U.S Military spending that is doing alot of harm to that country. I think what we will see is a better equipped military however I think they want to avoid the blank cheque issue the U.S has.

I wonder where all the people are who accuse the Harper government of being clones of the GWB government. This doesn't seem like a very GWB move.

I really don't think our military will go without much I think they just want to keep control of the spending. (At least I hope)

[2R]

Somewhere in Afghanistan there must be a mountain of gold and jewels from centuries of the growing and selling of opium .Time to send the boys out for some pillaging to fund the war and build some more schools and hospitals to creats some stable economic alternate to the opium trade .

[Nark]

Dust Devil

Are you confusing the War Spending and the looming ressesion?

They are two different beast's.

People buying homes they can't afford and buying us toys like the million dollar MRAP (armored vehicle) aren't conected.


When the CanFor went to Afgahnistan in '01 with digi-greens it kind of made me scratch my head.

[mcrit]

If I recall, the Marines are supposed to be the best shots in the US military, right?

[mellow_pilot]

I really don't think our military will go without much I think they just want to keep control of the spending. (At least I hope)

Deployment is exponentially more costly than standard training done by the military. There is no way that the military can possible maintain current staffing and training levels, increase the size and capability of those forces and pay for a full combat deployment on the standard operating budget. It is impossible.

You're right, they won't let the boys in combat go without. You'll see more delays in replacing SAR equipment, a delay in force augmentation, requiring more frequent deployments leading to burn-out and more frequent combat stress injuries (or whatever the term of the day is, I can't remember), you'll see a lack of capability and deterioration in general, much like the 90s.

Just moving all that equipment and personnel would kill most units' operating budgets.

[Dex]

I wonder where all the people are who accuse the Harper government of being clones of the GWB government. This doesn't seem like a very GWB move.

"It's part of an increasingly determined effort by the Harper government to assert more civilian control over the military, which has been perceived as having too much leeway in both the conduct of the war and with the public purse, said the official."

looks clear to me

[CD]

Dust Devil

Are you confusing the War Spending and the looming ressesion?

They are two different beast's.

People buying homes they can't afford and buying us toys like the million dollar MRAP (armored vehicle) aren't conected.

Speaking of which...

National Debt Grows $1 Million a Minute
By TOM RAUM – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day — or nearly $1 million a minute.

What's that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt — now at relatively low interest rates — rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain.

So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending — leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

A major economic slowdown, as some economists suggest may be looming, could hasten the day of reckoning.

The national debt — the total accumulation of annual budget deficits — is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.

That's $10,000,000,000,000.00, or one digit more than an odometer-style "national debt clock" near New York's Times Square can handle. When the privately owned automated clock was activated in 1989, the national debt was $2.7 trillion.

Complete article here...

[2R]

They may have to start pillaging the druglords bank accounts to pay for the war
Know anyone who is involved in the offshore banking industry ???
Know anyone who cut police funding in Canada ???
Know anyone who has a shipping business ???
Know anyone who cut the funding that investigated banks that laundered drug money ???
Same guys
Coincidence ???

Nevermind lets talk about the weather something else we can do nothing about stuff it i am going for a beer

Wars can be self financing