Pentagon Needs Billions More This Year in Iraq, Afghanistan By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 22, 2004; Page A01 The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year, federal investigators said yesterday. The report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress's independent investigative arm, warned that the budget crunch is having an adverse impact on the military as it shifts resources to Iraq and away from training and maintenance in other parts of the world. The study -- the most detailed examination to date of the military's funding problems -- appears to contradict White House assurances that the services have enough money to get through the calendar year. Already, the GAO said, the services have deferred the repair of equipment used in Iraq, grounded some Air Force and Navy pilots, canceled training exercises, and delayed facility-restoration projects. The Air Force is straining to cover the cost of body armor for airmen in combat areas, night-vision gear and surveillance equipment, according to the report. The Army, which is overspending its budget by $10.2 billion for operations and maintenance, is asking the Marines and the Air Force to help cover the escalating costs of its logistics contract with Halliburton Co. But the Air Force is also exceeding its budget by $1.4 billion, while the Marines are coming up $500 million short. The Army is even having trouble paying the contractors guarding its garrisons outside the war zones, the report said. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the Defense Department continues to believe that extra funds will not be needed this fiscal year. President Bush had requested a $25 billion reserve to cover shortfalls that may arise between Oct. 1, when the new fiscal year begins, and February, when the White House plans to submit a detailed funding request for military operations. But for now, Duffy said, there are no plans to tap the reserve. He added: "This president has said repeatedly the troops will have what they need, when they need it. That's why he has stood steadfastly in support of funding for our troops." Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's comptroller, said that though the fiscal 2004 budget is tight, "the department still anticipates sufficient funding to finance ongoing operations." <snip> The GAO report detailed just why a $65 billion emergency appropriation has proved to be insufficient. When Bush requested that money, the Pentagon assumed that troop levels in Iraq would decline from 130,000 to 99,000 by Sept. 30, that a more peaceful Iraq would allow the use of more cost-effective but slower sea lifts to transport troops and equipment, and that troops rotating in would need fewer armored vehicles than the service members they replace. Instead, troop levels will remain at 138,000 for the foreseeable future, the military is heavily dependent on costly airlifts and the Army's force has actually become more dependent on heavily armored vehicles. The weight of those vehicles, in turn, has contributed to higher-than-anticipated repair and maintenance costs. Higher troop levels have also pushed up the cost of the Pentagon's massive logistical contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. LINK More poor war planning by the Bush Admin...
More like, "Thanks to the military downsizing during the previous administration, it costs more now to try and make up for it." Facts. Any military personnel wanna comment here?
More like "We'll try to make it through November with what we have because the Administration fears that asking for more money to support this ridiculous effort will be political suicide." This has been coming for a few months and the Administration keeps insisting they don't need the funds while readying a funding bill for after the election. Wake up.
Wow, you are going to blame Clinton who had nothing to do with this Iraq war? That's pretty pathetic. How can this be a problem that Clinton caused? This president took us into a preemptive war, not the previous one. Sad to see that the repubs are going to blame Clinton for this. Do you even care about this country enough to question the current admin or are you just a sheep?
Two years ago, I began planning cuts in military spending that reflected the changes of the new era. But now, this year, with imperial communism gone, that process can be accelerated. Tonight I can tell you of dramatic changes in our strategic nuclear force. These are actions we are taking on our own because they are the right thing to do. After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B - 2 bombers. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. This weekend I will meet at Camp David with Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation. I've informed President Yeltsin that if the Commonwealth, the former Soviet Union, will eliminate all land-based multiple-warhead ballistic missiles, I will do the following: We will eliminate all Peacekeeper missiles. We will reduce the number of warheads on Minuteman missiles to one and reduce the number of warheads on our sea-based missiles by about one-third. And we will convert a substantial portion of our strategic bombers to primarily conventional use. President Yeltsin's early response has been very positive, and I expect our talks at Camp David to be fruitful. I want you to know that for half a century, American Presidents have longed to make such decisions and say such words. But even in the midst of celebration, we must keep caution as a friend. For the world is still a dangerous place. Only the dead have seen the end of conflict. And though yesterday's challenges are behind us, tomorrow's are being born. The Secretary of Defense recommended these cuts after consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I make them with confidence. But do not misunderstand me. The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next 5 years. By 1997, we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office. These cuts are deep, and you must know my resolve: This deep, and no deeper. To do less would be insensible to progress, but to do more would be ignorant of history. We must not go back to the days of "the hollow army." We cannot repeat the mistakes made twice in this century when armistice was followed by recklessness and defense was purged as if the world were permanently safe. LINK Yep...
Niether asleep, nor a sheep. Care to prove me wrong? Did Clinton not cut military spending, downsize our military, decrease the overall defense budget? Thought so. And what? 9 months into the current administration we were attacked during the same weakened, lessened military status... No. No, you wake up, and stop grazing. Facts.
Where are your facts? The speech right above you says he just cut nuclear, not a mention of the conventional weapons we use in this war. If you cut out the most expensive stuff we have, stuff we don't use, of course his budget looks smaller. Of course, what kind of weapons were developed during this time? Jdams, unmanned predators, all the little toys that make hunting terrorists a little easier.
Where are all the good young Rocket draftees? There they go: Langhi, Collier, Drew, Turckan, R. Lewis (oops) T. Morris et al. Will that be the fault of the next GM or the one sitting at the table when those decisions were made?
did you not read that speech and click the link? that wasn't Clinton speaking, that was President GHWB in 1992! Dick Cheney himself gutted the Defense Department, firing about a quarter of the military, cutting billions in spending and even scaling back his beloved "Star Wars" program after the first Gulf War like I told you before, EDUCATION is a wonderful thing, think for yourself
Facts: You appear to be ignorant as to both sides. I will leave military downsizing and theories of "force transformation' to others, and will concentrate only on the erroneous estimates of the Bush administration, which were either deliberate or the product of monumental incompetence on their part. From May: War Tab Swamps Bush's Estimate From Februrary of 2003 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/28/iraq/main542345.shtml You'll also note that these estimiates mention the departure of Larry Lindsey, who estimated that the war would cost 1-200 billion, and was roundly criticized and then fired: http://archives.charleston.net/pub/archive/news/wotcost1231.htm Here's a good article from the Financial Tiimes which discusses the increased costs of multilateralism as opposed to unilateralism http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/brainard/20030806.htm Example: in Kosovo, the US only paid 15% of peacekeeping and reconstruction costs. And finally, who can forget my personal favorite of the Bush Administration lies about Iraq and the cost from Wolfowitz, given under oath, while contrary evidence existed: You know, as I've said before, it's marginally amusing when people make ignorant statements on a BBS and you can call them on it to make them look as stupid as they sound, it's not amusing when you realize that our government has made the same stupid mistakes and that has resulted in wasted money and wasted lives.
Or, maybe you can blame the administration and its civillian officials that rejected plan after plan because they called for too many troops http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0228pentagoncontra.htm This is common knowledge, I don't know why you would even advance such a ridiculous argument. Even if we had 10 zillion troops in reserve, Rumsfield, Cheney, Wolfy, et al. wouldn't have used them. They made that overwhelmingly clear. They gambled that they could do this on the cheap; they were wrong.
The ability to militarily defend the world can be insignificant next to the power man's ignorance and desire. If only we had more nuclear weapons...
So are you arguing that end of the Cold War should not have precipitated the shrinking of the Cold-War armed forces? When we were racking up debt under Reagan to bankrupt the Soviet Union, was this not the planned outcome? And/or maybe you're arguing that all of those bombers and tanks would have protected us against some hijackers?
On the cheap or in proportion... so as to have some military force in reserve? There certainly could have been a miscalculation, but that doesn't justify your characterization. Do I hear squawking about how expensive this war is (on one hand) while (on the other hand) hear the administration being criticized for trying to do it on the cheap?
Giddyup, the struggles between the Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, Perle, Feith, Chaney, etc, and the "greet us with flowers/cakewalk" society on the one hand (they wanted as few as 40k troops) and the army's generals (Tommy Franks, Shinseki, and others) on the other hand are well documented, and were carried out in public as well as private. I suggest you read up on them, that one article I linked you to is only one of many on this issue. Use google because I don't feel like it doing the research for you. THe administration's attempts to do it on the cheap then (and to LIE to us about the cost, which Wolfowitz did, under oath) have ended up costing us more later. They lied to us about how expensive it was going to be, and ened up trying to do it on the cheap anyway, and still managed to f-ck things up. So the answer to your question is yes, they deserved to be criticized for it. You can think its inconsistent, even though seem to be conflating issues, and that's fine.... to be consistent, you have to believe that the administration is either a bunch of complete liars or a bunch of totally incompetent people (or, as Franks put it re:feith "the dumbest ******* on the face of the planet"). I tend to believe its probably a combination of both.
"Lie" is your favorite word, is it not? This read about the Democrats being critical is really eye-opening.
