Bush budget lacks funds for Baghdad embassy

As Congress prepares to delve into the administration's $25 billion fiscal 2005 request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a debate also is simmering about whether and how to add funds for the June 30 transition of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.

The State Department will be charged with staffing, security and other startup costs for interim embassy facilities -- up to $1 billion in 2005, according to department estimates. But the Bush administration has not requested those funds in either its regular 2005 budget or in the new military funding request.

That sum does not include the cost of constructing a new state-of-the-art embassy in Baghdad, which at up to $1.5 billion would dwarf the current largest State Department project -- a new embassy compound in Beijing expected to cost up to $450 million.

The situation has some influential lawmakers concerned about having to shift funds around in an already tighter-than-usual budget year.

"You can't send people over there without protection," said House Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va., in a recent interview. "You've got to deal with that issue. We'll do the best we can to meet the needs."

In a hearing last week before the House International Relations Committee, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said 2005 costs to operate the U.S. mission in Baghdad would amount to about $1 billion, which the administration would seek as part of its supplemental request, expected early next year.

After the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, Grossman said the agency would make do with funds appropriated in the Commerce-Justice-State spending bill until the new supplemental request is approved.

Grossman said costs for July through October are estimated at $483 million, with $477 million in fiscal 2004 funds available with another $6 million through reprogramming.

However, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee in late April the agency would be $40 million to $60 million short of the necessary 2004 funds, but that he did not anticipate legislative relief at this time.

He also said continued peacekeeping needs in Liberia, Sudan and Haiti could place additional demands on the 2005 supplemental expected early next year.

With the appearance last week of President Bush's 2005 budget "amendment" for the Pentagon's needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers are beginning to examine whether the additional funds should be limited for military purposes.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the size of the package his panel drafts could increase to as much as $50 billion and the situation on the ground after June 30 would play a role.

He indicated the administration should have almost unfettered flexibility to shift funds around to meet potential needs that arise, and that his panel was unlikely to approve the funds -- likely as part of the 2005 Defense spending bill -- until a post-June 30 review of the situation.

House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., also a senior member of the Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee, was more specific. "I'm concerned this supplemental does not have anything in it for operating the embassy" in Baghdad, he said.

Kolbe said he has discussed the issue with Armitage and other White House officials. Some lawmakers are demanding assurances that adequate funds will be available or may consider adding funds.

But he added that "it would set a very bad precedent" to fund embassy activities in the Defense appropriations bill. "We're looking at different ways to fund it," Kolbe said.

A congressional delegation led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that included Kolbe, Wolf, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., met with Bush administration officials at the White House last Thursday to discuss the situation in Iraq.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said embassy needs would be met in the context of the Commerce-Justice-State spending bill, but also did not rule out adding funds in addition to the $25 billion military request, arguing there is room for "substantially more" in the 2005 budget resolution, which contains an allowance for $50 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.