Bloomberg reports:
Congressional Quarterly reporter Josh Rogin adds:
It seems odd that an amendment requiring Congressional authorization for military action against Iran would have less support than an amendment preventing the Pentagon from planning for such action. If a member of Congress is worried that the Bush administration is preparing for a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities–which the administration would be unbelievably foolish not to do–then wouldn’t that representative also want to require that the Bush administration seek Congressional approval before putting those plans into action? Is there something I’m missing here? Also included in the Bloomberg piece: the House approved $4 billion for MRAP vehicles, which is on top of the $3 billion set aside for MRAP vehicles in the still unresolved supplemental, and the Army wants to spend a total of $19 billion on MRAP through 2009. The Marine Corps, too, has made clear its desire to switch over its entire fleet of Humvees to MRAP as soon as possible. At the beginning of the year, the program was expected to deliver roughly 4,000 vehicles at a cost of some $2 billion. Then it was 7,700 MRAPs for $8 billion. And now were talking about what, maybe $25 billion when all is said and done? The size of the MRAP program is growing at a remarkable rate.
