Saturday, May 16, 2009

Money, Money, Money

I was sent here to purview the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Pandemic Flu of the US Congress.

Some numbers relating to the Middle East:

• $3.6 billion, matching the request, to expand and improve capabilities of the Afghan security forces

• $400 million, as requested, to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of the Pakistani security forces

• Afghanistan: $1.52 billion, $86 million above the request

• West Bank and Gaza: $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza

• Jordan: $250 million, $250 million above the request, including $100 million for economic and $150 million for security assistance

• Egypt: $360 million, $310 million above the request, including $50 million for economic assistance, $50 million for border security, and $260 million for security assistance

• Pakistan: $1.9 billion, $591 million above the request

• Iraq: $968 million, $336 million above the request

• Oversight: $20 million, $13 million above the request, to expand oversight capacity of the State Department, USAID, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan to review programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq

• Lebanon: $74 million

• Refugee Assistance: $343 million, $50 million above the request, …including humanitarian assistance for Gaza. Funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency programs in the West Bank and Gaza is limited to $119 million (Note: Gaza = Hamas)

• Disaster Assistance: $200 million to avert famines and provide life-saving assistance during natural disasters and for internally displaced people around the world, including Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Middle East and South Asia.


That adds up to, er, 10 billion or more.

Oh, and Israel:

• Israel: $555 million of the $2.8 billion 2010 request for security assistance, $555 million above the supplemental request. (Note: that means Obama’s original request did not include any money for Israel in 2009)


(Kippah tip: Creeping Sharia via AtlasShrugs)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Note: that means Obama’s original request did not include any money for Israel in 2009"

Maybe he and his cronies are getting tired of Israel's espionage activity in the USA.

YMedad said...

Well, they don't seem to get tired of Egyptian espionage, why should they tire of Israel's? And what should Israel do about American spying here?

Try this:

James Fondren served as the Deputy Director of Pacific Command's liaison office and had a long friendship with Tai Shen Kuo, who was arrested and charged last year for passing sensitive information onto Chinese military and intelligence officials. Fondren and Kuo were both friends and business associates. Prior to working at the Pentagon as a civilian, Fondren served as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force and retired in 1996. Two years later, according to the criminal complaint, Fondren established a consulting company in Virginia whose sole client was Kuo, a naturalized US citizen from Taiwan who lived in Louisiana and ran two companies in the United States. (ABC, 13 May 09)

Anonymous said...

From the comments:

"I guess the moral to the story is that if you're going to spy, be sure to sell the information to Israel, because our politicians take so much money in bribes from Israel's front groups that they'll get you off in a heartbeat".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/13/dods-james-fondren-jr-cha_n_202933.html