$1 for Homeland Security, $3 for Iraq

From TBogg via the San Francisco Chronicle:
Just put it on our tab:

With troop commitments growing, the cost of the war in Iraq could top $150 billion through the next fiscal year — as much as three times what the White House had originally estimated. And, according to congressional researchers and outside budget experts, the war and continuing occupation could total $300 billion over the next decade, making this one of the costliest military campaigns in modern times.

As a measure of the Bush administration’s priorities in the war on terrorism, it has spent about $3 in Iraq for every $1 committed to homeland security, experts say.

[...]

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a hawk on defense issues, said in an interview that his concern is that the administration has not been including the war’s costs in the Defense Department’s regular budget, but instead has been seeking special supplemental appropriations, which it has asked for as late as possible to delay the public release of financial information on the war.

Worse, he said, by providing funding so late, the administration has placed further stress on the military itself, which is having to scramble and transfer money from other accounts to temporarily cover some war costs.

“Somehow, they have come to think that it’s politically embarrassing that they need more money to pay for this war,” Weldon said of President Bush and his aides. “If they’re doing this for political purposes, I think it’s stupid. It’s shortsighted.”

Stupid...shortsighted....

Yeah. You could say that.