Bush expected to submit $70 billion war tab

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the administration’s war budget request, saying some elements of the proposal were yet to be settled and that Bush has yet to sign off on the measure.

As of Thursday, sources said, the package would include about $63 billion for the Defence Department, $5 billion to $10 billion for the State Department to provide aid to allies such as Israel, and between $2 billion and $4 billion for the new Department of Homeland Security. Sources said the Defence Department figure presumed one month of fighting followed by up to five months of occupation.

Analysts speculated that the defence figure might include up to $20 billion for military operations in Afghanistan.

Congressional Republican leaders will have to tackle the request while pushing for passage of a budget blueprint for the next fiscal year that would accommodate the $725 billion in new tax cuts that the president is seeking to rekindle economic growth.

Bush orders seizure of Iraqi government assets

Washington: US President George Bush ordered the Treasury Department on Thursday to seize more than $1.4 billion in Iraqi government money frozen in US banks since 1990. The money, plus an additional $600 million frozen by Great Britain and 10 other countries, will be used to help defray the costs of rebuilding Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s regime is toppled, Treasury Secretary John Snow said in announcing Bush’s order.

Snow said the US has also asked other countries to freeze Iraqi assets so they can be used to help with the rebuilding. And he said the Treasury has launched ‘‘a worldwide hunt’’ for an estimated $6 billion the US believes Saddam, his family and aides obtained through kickbacks and illegal oil sales and have stashed in concealed accounts. This money would also be used for humanitarian aid in a post-Saddam Iraq.

The more than $1.4 billion in principal and interest that will be confiscated from 17 US banks will be transferred to an account in the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Treasury officials said.

The money is in frozen accounts of Iraqi government and of four entities controlled by Iraq: The Central Bank of Iraq, Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank and the State Organisation for Marketing Oil. There is a total of about $1.7 billion in the accounts, Treasury officials said. But about $300 million has claims on it by victims of terrorism who have won judgments against Iraq and will not be seized under the order, they said.

Western ‘human shields’ camp at power plant

Bagdad: Westerners, opposed to the war are acting as ‘‘human shields’’ at a power plant which provides six million people in Baghdad with electricity. The area around the Al-Daura power plant, which also accommodates one of the country’s oil refineries, was bombed on Thursday.

On Friday, some of the 15 ‘‘human shields’’ spoke of why they were there. ‘‘My life is not more important than the lives of thousands of Iraqis living in a village close to this plant,’’ said Michel Pauli, 57, from Switzerland.

Marc Eubauks, an American, said: ‘‘I am here as a human shield hopefully to prevent an attack on this plant’’. ‘‘I am not backing the Iraqi regime. It is a wrong action by the US. It is not our regime to change it.’’