[h2co-pilot]

The U.S. Army will defer spending and slow repair work on any equipment not needed for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan due to Congress' failure to approve $100 billion in extra war funding, the largest branch of the armed forces said on Monday.

The Bush administration requested $100 billion in additional war funding but Congress has tied those funds to a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Reuters: Democrat Delays Already Harming Troops

Bush shoved back hard, indicating no wiggle room on his postion for a bill that would fund American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan without a timetable for withdrawal

Democratic leaders in Congress are bent on using a bill that funds our troops to make a political statement about the war

"Instead of approving that vital funding, the Democratic leadership in Congress has spent the last 64 days pushing legislation that would undercut our troops just as we are beginning to make progress in Baghdad,?

Additional orders cannot be placed until the disagreement over the war spending legislation is settled. That bill would give the Army ($1.2 billion), the Marines ($1.25 billion), the Navy ($154 million), the Air Force ($139 million) and special operations forces ($259 million) money to buy their own versions of the carriers, according to Bill Johnson-Miles, spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command. (Source: Army Times April 24, 2007)

?We can build what we can get the funds to build. It?s strictly an issue of money,? Gen. Peter Schoomaker, former Army chief of staff, told a Senate committee last month.

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