BUSH WANTS TO MORE THAN DOUBLE EXPENDITURES ON HIS WARS

AP - The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7
billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to
information provided to The Associated Press. The military's request, if
embraced by President Bush and approved by Congress, would boost this
year's budget for those wars to about $170 billion. . .

Overall, the war in Iraq has cost about $350 billion. Combined with the
conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the
cost has topped $500 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional
Research Service.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/20/war.funds.ap/

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BUSH DEVELOPING ILLEGAL BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

SHERWOOD ROSS, TRUTH OUT - In violation of the US Code and international
law, the Bush administration is spending more money (in
inflation-adjusted dollars) to develop illegal, offensive germ warfare
than the $2 billion spent in World War II on the Manhattan Project to
make the atomic bomb.

So says Francis Boyle, the professor of international law who drafted
the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by Congress.
He states the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and 'win' biological
warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted
"without public knowledge and review" in 2002. . .

Terming the action "the proverbial smoking gun," Boyle said the mission
of the controversial CBW program "has been altered to permit development
of offensive capability in chemical and biological weapons!" . . .

For fiscal years 2001-2004, the federal government funded $14.5 billion
"for ostensibly 'civilian' biowarfare-related work alone," a "truly
staggering" sum, Boyle wrote.

Another $5.6 billion was voted for "the deceptively-named 'Project Bio
Shield,'" under which Homeland Security is stockpiling vaccines and
drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox and other bioterror agents, wrote
Boyle. Protection of the civilian population is, he said, "one of the
fundamental requirements for effectively waging biowarfare."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122006R.shtml

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