WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is spending nearly $4 billion a month in Iraq, a “burn rate” that is likely to continue far longer than the Bush administration intended due to ongoing attacks on US forces, according to private and government cost projections.

Pentagon officials have avoided divulging the size of the force they anticipated for Iraqi occupation and reconstruction, but a Defence Department report sent to Congress last week conceded that demobilization has not been as rapid as planned. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the monthly cost of operations in Iraq is roughly $3.9 billion.

The military has already had to shift about $3.6 billion from an Iraq contingency fund and other military accounts to cover unanticipated costs, according to the report. And the current force in Iraq — about 150,000 troops — will likely remain in the region into the next fiscal year, which begins in October, the report said.

Pentagon officials and defence analysts in Congress say the $62.6 billion emergency spending bill that Congress passed just after the war began should cover war costs through the end of this fiscal year. But the messy aftermath — with its guerrilla- like attacks, looting and sluggish rebuilding efforts — threatens to drain the Treasury well into next year and beyond.

The $3.9 billion monthly spending rate is nearly double the rate anticipated for longer-term peacekeeping operations, a House Appropriations Committee aide said. Indeed, signs of strain are already beginning to show, according to Defence Department documents.

In its most detailed assessment of the cost of the war, the Pentagon said it has already incurred $900 million in unanticipated personnel costs and about $4.1 billion in weapons depot maintenance costs that are “beyond the scope of the ... programmes to absorb.”

An additional $612 million in family separation allowances and imminent danger pay demanded by Congress will also have to be covered by shifting funds from other accounts. —Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.