Heckled by anti-war protesters, Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the funding was needed to cover the cost of keeping extra troops in Iraq through July and to provide better armored vehicles to the US contingent there.

The latest request marks a sharp increase over the 141.7 billion dollars that the administration requested for 2008 at the start of the surge in February.

"The second adjustment to be submitted by the president seeks approximately 42 billion dollars, bringing the total FY (fiscal year) '08 DOD (Department of Defense) request to nearly 190 billion dollars," Gates said.

Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, noted the dramatic rise in war costs, ticking off yearly increases in war spending from 34 billion dollars in 2002 to 171 billion dollars this year.

"If you go back and look at the supplementals it has been a constant progression upwards," said Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat of California, adding that the latest request comes "at a time when many of us believe we should be ratcheting down our involvement in this country."

Gates said six billion dollars of the additional funding would go to maintain additional US "surge" forces in Iraq through mid-July.

The 165,000 US troops currently in Iraq are organized around 20 combat brigades or their equivalent.

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, earlier this month announced plans to reduce the size of the force by five brigades by mid-July, which would bring force levels down to around 130,000 troops.

Gates said the new funding request "takes into account the president's announced intention to redeploy five Army combat brigade combat teams by next summer."

Defense officials said the war funding being sought now does not anticipate force reductions beyond July even though Gates has expressed hopes they can be drawn down to 10 brigades by the end of the year, or about 100,000 troops.

The new funding request includes 11 billion dollars to field 7,000 mine resistant armored vehicles known as MRAPs on top of 8,000 that already have been funded or requested, he said.

Gates has made procurement of MRAPs the Pentagon's top procurement priority since learning that not a single US troop has been killed by a roadside bomb in one.

The vehicles have V-shaped hulls that are designed to deflect the blast of an under-carriage explosion. They would replace armored Humvees, which have proven vulnerable to roadside bombs.

Currently there are only 1,100 MRAPs in the Iraq theater but the Pentagon hopes to ramp up production to 1,200 a month by December, Gates said.

The funding also will go for programs to "better defeat enemy snipers and to modify Army combat vehicles to improve survivability," Gates said.

Another nine billion dollars will go for equipment and technology needed for future combat operations; six billion dollars to accelerate the deployment readiness of US Army units; one billion dollars for US facilities and bases; and one billion dollars to train and equip Iraqi security forces, Gates said.

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are funded separately from the base defense budget. The administration's 2008 budget request for 481.4 billion dollars is still moving through the Congress.

earlier related report
Bush in new Congress battle over huge war funding demand
The US government triggered a bruising new battle with Congress Wednesday by demanding the mammoth sum of nearly 190 billion dollars to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The administration's largest funding request yet for the six-year-old "war on terror" came as Democrats battled to pursue a thus-far futile drive to curtail the bloody Iraq mission.

The 2008 budget request was announced by the Pentagon, which also revealed that US military commanders have been warned that they are responsible for overseeing private security contractors in Iraq.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, President George W. Bush and Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki held their first talks since a September 16 shootout in Baghdad involving the Blackwater company that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.

Bush assured Maliki of Washington's support, aides said, despite US public anger at the war and the sluggish pace of Iraqi progress on legislation seen as key to forging national unity and quelling sectarian violence.

Addressing the UN Wednesday, Maliki said his country's neighbors realized the dangers of extremist violence on their doorstep as he urged the world body to boost efforts to rebuild the fractured nation.

A spate of powerful car and suicide bombings rocked Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 36 people and raising the toll in a three-day surge of bloodletting to more than 70.

The UN has been under strong pressure also from the United States to adopt a higher profile in Iraq, with the Bush administration under intense military strain from the costly war.

As Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out his case for the extra money in a Senate hearing, senior Democrat Robert Byrd said the "nefarious, infernal war in Iraq" had now cost more than 450 billion dollars on its own.

"In the fifth year of this terrible, misguided conflict, this senator -- yes, this man from the hill country -- believes that it is time for a thorough evaluation of the Bush war in Iraq," the West Virginia senator told Gates.

"If we're serious about supporting our troops, we owe them nothing less."

The Pentagon's budget submission was 42.3 billion dollars greater than the administration's estimate when it presented its first 2008 budget request to the Democratic-led Congress in February.

"This additional 42.3 billion dollars puts us at just under 190 billion dollars for the global war on terror supplemental request for 2008 -- 189.3 billion dollars," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters.

Gates said the increase was needed in part to cover the cost of maintaining the so-called "surge" in US forces at least through July 2008, as well as to buy mine-resistant armored vehicles known as MRAPs.

Currently there are 165,000 US troops in Iraq, organized into around 20 combat brigades.

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, earlier this month announced plans to reduce the size of the force by five brigades by mid-July, which would bring force levels down to around 130,000 troops.

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is funded separately from the regular Pentagon budget. The administration's 2008 budget request for 481.4 billion dollars is still moving through the Congress.

The mammoth new request was sure to run into a firestorm in Congress, although the Democrats have so far proven unable to lure enough Republicans away from Bush's Iraq strategy.

Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' frontrunner in the 2008 White House race, says she will vote to halt war spending and curtail Bush's "failed policy" by starting to bring US troops home.

"There is no military solution (in Iraq)," Clinton told CBS in one of a blizzard of television interviews Sunday, arguing US troops were stuck in "a sectarian civil war."

"I voted against funding last spring. I will vote against funding again in the absence of any change in policy," she said, defending an evolution in her thinking since she backed Bush's drive for war in a 2002 Senate vote.

earlier related report
Twenty held in raid on Baghdad military academy
Iraqi forces backed by US forces raided a military academy in Baghdad and arrested more than 20 people believed involved in killings and kidnappings, Iraqi and American officials said on Wednesday.

The swoop was carried out on Tuesday by Iraqi Special Operations Forces on the Iraqi Military Academy in Baghdad's Rustamiyah district.

"The ministry's special task force raided the military academy to arrest officials who are wanted by the justice," defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

"The forces arrested over 20 personnel of the academy including high ranking officers," he said.

"They are members of gangs formed to carry out killings and kidnappings. We carried out a big operation and managed to get hold of them."

A US military statement said the operation was "designed to apprehend individuals suspected in the kidnapping and murder of the former commandant, Major General Imad, and with the kidnapping of the current commandant, Brigadier General Hassan who was subsequently released.

"The individuals detained allegedly use security personnel to carry out murder, kidnapping, improvised explosive device and explosively formed penetrator attacks, to including providing military equipment and weapons to criminal elements.

US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner told a press conference in Baghdad that the operation had the backing of US military advisors but that it had been initiated by the defence ministry.

"It shows the defence ministry's commitment to take action. It is an important step that they have taken to deal with certain problems in their own ranks," Bergner said.

Located in the southeastern suburbs of the capital, the Iraqi Military Academy was the principal military school during the rule of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, turning out thousands of officers.

"The Ministry of Defence action against these criminals demonstrates that the government of Iraq is dedicated to establish security and defeat criminal elements wherever they are in the country," Askari said in an earlier statement.

"The Iraqi security forces are focused on eliminating criminals from their ranks."

A draft report into corruption in the Iraqi government by the US embassy in Baghdad said many ministries are run by militia and criminal gangs, including the defence ministry.

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