Check the couch cushions

The Government Accountability Office(GAO) reports that we've overspent in Iraq just a little.

The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year, federal investigators said yesterday.

The report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress's independent investigative arm, warned that the budget crunch is having an adverse impact on the military as it shifts resources to Iraq and away from training and maintenance in other parts of the world. The study -- the most detailed examination to date of the military's funding problems -- appears to contradict White House assurances that the services have enough money to get through the calendar year.

Already, the GAO said, the services have deferred the repair of equipment used in Iraq, grounded some Air Force and Navy pilots, canceled training exercises, and delayed facility-restoration projects. The Air Force is straining to cover the cost of body armor for airmen in combat areas, night-vision gear and surveillance equipment, according to the report.

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The GAO report detailed just why a $65 billion emergency appropriation has proved to be insufficient. When Bush requested that money, the Pentagon assumed that troop levels in Iraq would decline from 130,000 to 99,000 by Sept. 30, that a more peaceful Iraq would allow the use of more cost-effective but slower sea lifts to transport troops and equipment, and that troops rotating in would need fewer armored vehicles than the service members they replace.

Where else could the money have gone? Halliburton.

Investigators from the Government Accountability Office found a "pattern of contractor management problems" which led to cost disputes between the Pentagon and the contractor, Houston-based Halliburton. The GAO investigators also criticized Halliburton's staffing and accounting.

So far, the military has agreed to pay Halliburton more than $5 billion on the contract in question.

Separate federal investigations are looking into whether Halliburton overcharged the Army for fuel and meals and allegations that former Halliburton workers may have taken bribes from a Kuwaiti subcontractor.