10 April,2009 09:27 AM IST | | Agencies
US President Barack Obama asked Congress on Thursday for $83.4 billion for US military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was senator and George W. Bush was president.
Obama's request, including money to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.
Obama is also requesting $350 million in new funding to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border and to
combat narcoterrorists, along with another $400 million in counterinsurgency aid to Pakistan.
"Nearly 95 per cent of these funds will be used to support our men and women in uniform as they help the people of Iraq to take responsibility for their own future and work to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Obama wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
