The Defense Department is preparing a $163.1 billion war-cost spending request for fiscal year 2011, a previously unreported figure that would finance the continuing drawdown of U.S. units from Iraq and sustain the surge of American forces in Afghanistan, according to Pentagon officials.

If approved by Congress, the FY-11 “overseas contingency operations” spending proposal would bring the price tag for the wars in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, and Iraq, which began in 2003, to more than $1.2 trillion, according to Pentagon budget documents.