Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will seek $75.5 billion more for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of this fiscal year, according to three people familiar with the request.

It will be submitted along with the fiscal 2010 budget Obama sends to Congress tomorrow. That proposal will request $130 billion for the wars in fiscal 2010 in addition to a total Defense Department budget of about $534 billion, the people said.

The amounts for the wars are less than Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked for and in keeping with expectations that the president plans a major reduction of the 142,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.

The extra funding for fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30, includes money for adding 17,000 troops to the U.S. force of 38,000 in Afghanistan.

Gates in December said he would need $69.7 billion more this year, not counting the cost of adding troops in Afghanistan. On Feb. 3, he told the White House he would need as much as $83 billion. Obama announced the troop increase two weeks later.

The $130 billion requested for the conflicts in fiscal 2010 is at the low range of the Pentagon’s request for $130 billion to $140 billion.

Congress already has approved $65.9 billion in emergency wartime spending for fiscal 2009.

Lower War Spending

The latest request would bring the total to about $141.4 billion, the lowest amount for war spending since fiscal 2006 when Congress approved $121.5 billion. Congress approved $171 billion for fiscal 2007 and $187 billion for fiscal 2008. That was the highest level since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Navy Commander Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman, said “it would be inappropriate to comment” on the budget prior to its release.

The $534 billion Pentagon annual budget represents a 4 percent increase over the $513.3 billion approved this fiscal year, or a 2 percent inflation-adjusted increase, said an analyst.

“The outgoing Bush Administration defense plan projected essentially flat defense budgets for the next few years, apart from war-related costs,” said Stephen Daggett, a defense budget analyst for the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

“The Obama administration’s plan for fiscal 2010 on its face doesn’t seem to change that, at least for the next year,” he said. “The total amount is bit higher, but that could reflect paying for some ongoing war costs in the base budget rather than putting them into the separate request for war funding,” he said.

“There are also always changes in overall inflation or in fuel costs which affect whether there is a real increase or decrease in purchasing power,” Daggett said. “So there may be some small net difference, but apparently not anything very substantial.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 25, 2009 18:32 EST