'Give me war cash or lose military staff' - Gates tells congress

US defence secretary Robert Gates has told Congress it must pass laws within days to pay for the Iraq war, or he will order the US Army and Marine Corps to draw up plans to axe staff and terminate contracts.

Gates, who met members of the Democrat-controlled Congress on Wednesday, said he did not have the money or the flexibility to move around funding to cover adequately the costs of continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a misperception that this department can continue funding our troops in the field for an indefinite period of time through accounting manoeuvres; that we can shuffle money around the department. This is a serious misconception,” Gates said at the Pentagon.

As a result, he said he was faced with the undesirable task of preparing to cease operations at army bases by mid-February and sack about 100,000 defence department staff and an equal number of civilian contractors.

A month later, he said, similar moves would have to be made by the marines.

Some members of Congress believed the Pentagon could switch enough money to cover the war accounts, Gates said. But he said he had only the flexibility to transfer about $3.7bn (€2.5bn), which covered the expenses of the war for just one week.

However, Senate majority leader Harry Reid said Republicans and President George Bush, not Democrats, were to blame.

“The president, refusing to be held accountable for his disastrous war policy, is threatening to reject both our reasonable approach and that money, leaving our military empty-handed,” Reid said.

On a 218-203 vote, the House of Representatives passed a £24bn (€33.5bn) bill on Wednesday that would pay for the wars, but require that troops start to leave Iraq in 30 days.

It sets a goal of ending combat by December 2008, as well as establishing interrogation standards that would make illegal the practice of waterboarding, which makes the person being interrogated have the sensation of drowning.

The Senate plans to vote as early as today on the measure. The bill was expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to advance.

The White House says President Bush would veto the war spending bill.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and Senator Reid said yesterday that if Congress was unable to pass legislation that set a timetable on the war – a likely scenario – it would probably drop the issue until early next year.