Pentagon: Afghan War Costs to Overtake Iraq Next Year

With US military commitments to Afghanistan forever on the rise, and the president still tenatively planning to slash the Iraq force by August of next year, budget documents from the Pentagon suggest that the costs of the war in Afghanistan will eclipse the war in Iraq in 2010.

Of the $130 billion the Obama Administration is seeking in its 2010 budget for overseas missions, $65 billion is allocated for Afghanistan and only $61 billion for Iraq. Vice Admiral Steve Stanley says “this request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources, but combat capability, from the Iraqi theater into the Afghan theater.”

Also shifting were the funds for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (pdf). The program, which funds emergency humanitarian needs on the ground during the assorted wars, was split equally between Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009. In 2010, the vast majority will go to Afghanistan.