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President George W. Bush approved another $25 billion in emergency funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on Thursday, while appealing to key military constituents as he signed a new $417 billion Pentagon spending bill. The Bush administration had previously said it would not need more money for Iraq and Afghanistan until the new fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, but officials later acknowledged they might need to draw on the emergency funds allocated by Congress. A congressional report last month said the administration had underestimated costs for Iraq and Afghanistan by $12.3 billion for the current fiscal year. Congress, which had approved an $87 billion emergency spending bill in October 2003 to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of September, sanctioned the extra funds late last month as a down payment on next year's emergency spending bill. [more]