US general sees $70 billion bill to expand Army
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The Bush administration's plan to permanently increase the size of the U.S. Army, strained by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will cost $70 billion over five years, a U.S. Army general said on Tuesday. Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes said the cost of adding 62,000 soldiers to the Army would come on top of existing bills to repair and replace equipment worn out in Iraq. The cost of those repairs has been estimated at $13.5 billion in fiscal year 2008. The Army does not want policymakers to shift defense spending away from other branches of the armed forces to pay for additional soldiers, Speakes said. "We're not into a zero-sum game in which we're trying to take from the other services," he told reporters. "We need a healthy and robust other-service contribution to this fight." "What we're asking for then is that Americans make a decision on priorities," he said. The Pentagon has proposed boosting the size of the Army to 547,000 and the Marine Corps to 202,000. Those services are the two military branches most pressured by long and extended deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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