Postwar troop needs disputed

WASHINGTON -- In a contentious exchange over the costs of war with Iraq, the Pentagon's second-ranking official Thursday disparaged the top Army general's assessment of the number of troops needed to secure postwar Iraq. House Democrats then accused the Pentagon official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, of concealing internal administration estimates on the cost of fighting and rebuilding the country.

Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops.

Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting the Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war's duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward.

"We have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground," Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the House Budget Committee. "Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10 billion to $100 billion."

Wolfowitz's refusal to be pinned down on the costs of war and peace in Iraq infuriated some committee Democrats.

Wolfowitz, with Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller, at his side, tried to mollify the Democratic lawmakers, promising to fill them in eventually on the administration's internal cost estimates.

"There will be an appropriate moment," he said, when the Pentagon would provide Congress with cost ranges. "We're not in a position to do that right now."

At a Pentagon news conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Rumsfeld echoed his deputy's comments.

A possible war with Iraq has so many variables that estimating its cost is impossible, Rumsfeld said.

The surge of U.S. troops into the region around Iraq continued, meanwhile, as the Pentagon on Thursday dispatched a sixth aircraft carrier and stealthy B-2 bombers to bolster forces already numbering more than 200,000.

Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters Thursday alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said trying to come up with a cost for the range of Iraq war scenarios "simply isn't useful."

"If you don't know if it's going to last six days, six weeks or six months, how in the world are you going to come up with a cost estimate?" Rumsfeld said. "The people who tried to estimate those things for the (1991) Gulf War were flat wrong by an enormous amount, and it makes no sense to try to do it."

Neither Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz mentioned Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, by name. But both men were clearly irritated at the general's suggestion that a postwar Iraq might require many more forces than the 100,000 American troops and the tens of thousands of allied forces that are also expected to join a reconstruction effort.

"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," Rumsfeld said.

Shinseki gave his estimate in response to a question at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday: "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers . . ." He also said that the regional commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, would determine the precise figure.

A spokesman for Shinseki, Col. Joe Curtin, said Thursday that the general stood by his estimate. "He was asked a question and he responded with his best military judgment," Curtin said.

Contributing: Associated Press.

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