Expansion

If you ask me, this is good news.

The Pentagon wants to build three new US army brigades and to train and equip Iraqi forces with 75 billion dollars requested Tuesday, while funding deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, a top US defense official said.

President George W. Bush asked Congress for 80 billion dollars in emergency funds in fiscal 2005 earlier Tuesday. All but five billion dollars would go to the Defense Department.

More than two thirds of the Defense Department's 75-billion-dollar share will cover the normal incremental costs of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the defense official said on condition he not be identified.

He said the request departed from past practice, however, by adding funding to the army's program to overhaul its division-based force structure and replace it with a more deployable, combat-ready force built around brigades.

It's about friggin' time.