White House denies wrongdoing in Iraq war planning

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=bondsNews&storyID=4870867

White House denies wrongdoing in Iraq war planning

Mon Apr 19, 2004 06:47 PM ET

(Recasts with Pentagon denial)
By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - The White House and Pentagon on Monday
denied financial wrongdoing in preparing for the Iraq war after a book
alleged that millions of dollars were prematurely diverted from
operations in Afghanistan in 2002 without the knowledge of Congress.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted that Congress was "fully
informed" about how the money was spent.

He said emergency spending legislation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
on America gave the Bush administration "broad discretion" on how
funding could be used.

But in "Plan of Attack," author Bob Woodward says President George W.
Bush began preparing for war with Iraq within weeks of the Sept. 11 attacks.

To help maintain secrecy, Woodward said, Bush funded the war
preparations with $700 million that was earmarked for Afghanistan and
old appropriations.

"Congress was totally in the dark on this," Woodward told CBS "60
Minutes" of the alleged shift in funding in July 2002.

A senior Pentagon budget official told reporters in a hastily called
briefing on Monday that Army Gen. Tommy Franks, then head of the U.S.
Central Command, submitted a request to the Pentagon leadership for $750
million in "Iraq contingency" funding in July 2002.

But the official said that no money was provided by the Pentagon for
actual war preparations in neighboring Kuwait and the region until after
Congress passed a resolution on Oct. 11, 2002, authorizing the use of
force "if necessary" in Iraq.

PENTAGON EXPLANATION

The Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified, said that $178
million was given to Central Command in August and September of that
year, but insisted that the money was for such items as fuel and
humanitarian aid and not for direct war planning.

Defense officials told reporters the Pentagon approved $63 million in
military construction funds for Kuwait in October 2002 after notifying
Congress and also began sending another $800 million to the command for
war preparations later that month after Congress had approved its
resolution.

The defense officials did not make clear whether that money came from
two supplemental spending bills totaling $31.2 billion provided by
Congress in 2001 and 2002 for what Bush calls the war on terrorism,
including the war in Afghanistan.

McClellan said the White House Office of Management and Budget and the
Pentagon were "reviewing this," but added, "At this time we are
confident that Congress was kept fully informed of all expenditures."

"We're gathering all those facts," McClellan said. "In emergency
spending, there is broad discretion in how those funds could be used in
the war on terrorism. Iraq is a part of the war on terrorism."

Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, top Democrat on the House of
Representatives Appropriations Committee that oversees spending, said
Bush owed Congress "a full, detailed and immediate accounting."

If the book is accurate, Obey said, it was "ironic that the president
was surreptitiously authorizing expenditures to begin a plan for war"
while resisting efforts in Congress to boost spending for homeland security.

The Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Bill
Young of Florida, said because "of the lack of specificity in the
Woodward account, it is impossible to determine what specific funds he
is alleging were spent without Congress' knowledge."
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