Editorial: Straight talk on the war

Thursday, April 22, 2004 | 8:42 a.m.

Earlier this year the White House's budget director conceded that the $87 billion Congress authorized in 2003 for the war in Iraq wouldn't be enough. Nevertheless, fearing political fallout from the war's escalating costs, the White House has said any multibillion-dollar request to supplement the budget wouldn't come until Jan. 1 -- a convenient date, since it falls after the presidential election. And that's only this year's budget. Bush still won't say how much he'll need in Iraq for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, even though Congress already is at work on funding the U.S. military budget.

Pentagon officials could try to temporarily shift funds from other areas of the Defense Department budget to Iraq to erase the shortfall, but this would be nothing more than smoke-and-mirrors accounting that would avoid the hard choices that must be made. On Wednesday a White House spokesman said Bush might reconsider seeking additional spending before the end of the year, but the statement fell far short of a commitment to push for more money. The continued refusal by President Bush to acknowledge the true costs of the Iraq war is drawing intensified criticism from Democrats and even Republicans.

On Wednesday Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told the NBC program "Today" that the administration needs to level with the public: "Every ground squirrel in this country knows that it's going to be $50 billion to $75 billion in additional money required to sustain us in Iraq this year." House Armed Services Committee Vice Chairman Curt Weldon, R-Pa., told The Washington Post that it is "outrageous" that the White House is playing political games by putting off additional funding requests until next year. He added that Bush's current budget request is "immoral" and noted some of the unmet funding needs directly affect the safety of the troops. The Army has identified roughly $6 billion in funding requests that haven't made it into the budget, items including more combat helmets, automatic weapons, ammunition and body armor. And George Bush is supposed to be the wa r president?

The White House is worried about the sticker-shock effect -- that support for the war will wane if Americans know the real costs. Disclosing the war's actual price tag also could hurt politically in another way, highlighting some of the criticism that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has made about Bush's go-it-alone policy. The cost in money and American lives lost -- more than 700 U.S. soldiers have been killed, with 100 in April already -- very likely would not have been so great if the president had assembled a genuine coalition of nations to share the burden of the war.

The president should immediately tell the public what actually will be needed for the war effort. Remaining silent would be dishonest.