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Army budget jeopardise Athens Games security

February 04, 2004 19:38 IST

The Greek army says it is short of funds to play the major security role assigned to it at this year's Games Olympics, the Kathimerini daily said on Wednesday.

It said an internal report by the Army General Staff found it needed at least 60 million euros ($75 million) for Games security, but the government had approved only 10 million.

"Unless we find additional funding, we will face insurmountable difficulties in developing our plan (for Games security)," the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

The document also recommended that eight million euros earmarked for exceptional spending be used to plug the hole in the short term, the newspaper said.

Defence Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

This week, Greece boosted its troop allocation for the Games by 2,000 to 10,000, and said 40,000 more troops would be on call, making it the country's biggest military deployment in peace time.

Greece is spending a record 650 million euros on Games security and has already said it will mobilise about 40,000 police and security staff in addition to the army -- three times as many as were on call during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.


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