White House to ask for $33 billion in war funds

President Barack Obama is reportedly seeking an additional $33 billion to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to reports in the media.

The new amount — which would raise war funding from $128 billion in 2009 to about $159 billion in 2010 — will be part of the president's Quadrennial Defense Review, which the White House will send to Congress on Feb. 1.

Ultimately, the new request means U.S. defense spending will surpass $700 billion for the first time, reported The Associated Press, which learned of the new spending figure early Wednesday morning.

The White House's request for additional war dollars arrives just as the Pentagon is deploying the more than 30,000 new troops Obama ordered to Afghanistan last year. Most of the new $33 billion in defense spending will pay for that escalation, the AP noted, which Obama promised to begin drawing down as early as July 2011.

Ultimately, the president hopes to conclude both the Afghan and Iraq wars within the next four years, according to the AP's reading of the upcoming strategy document. White House officials will likely testify about those plans, the defense review in general and the president's new war spending figure specifically before Congress next month, the AP added.

But winning lawmakers' support, Democrats especially, could prove difficult for the Obama administration.

Many of the party's members have signaled an unwillingness to spend more on the war escalation — a fact evident from last year's debate over the surge. New funding requests could prove equally difficult to sell, though a year of midterm elections could ultimately help Obama win the day.

However, centrist Democrats and Republicans are likely to side with Obama on the question of new war dollars, perhaps guaranteeing the request's passage. Those groups of lawmakers supported Obama's decision in December to add more troops to the Afghan war.

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