Defense official lays out 'transformation' budget details

A top Defense Department official on Wednesday defended the Bush administration's request for a $48 billion increase in the fiscal 2003 budget for the Pentagon. In doing so, he detailed the budget proposal that targets the department's efforts to transform the military into a leaner, more technological war-fighting institution.

President Bush's total budget request for Defense is $379 billion, "a great deal of money," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Wolfowitz identified six key transformational goals in the "future-years defense program" that covers fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2007.

Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., questioned the size of the requested increase, noting that increases have been given every year of late. Those increases along with a $20 billion supplemental last fall for the Afghanistan war led to a deficit in fiscal 2002, he said.

If the fiscal 2003 increase is approved, "I'll be questioning how in the world can we maintain the credibility of this subcommittee, which is on your side," Hollings said. "We're the ones who are going to get beat up [later] because this town is going to sober up."

Wolfowitz said the fiscal 2003 budget includes $53.9 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation, a $5.5 billion increase over fiscal 2002. The budget requests $71.9 billion for procurement, a $7.6 billion increase. Of those categories, the amount requested for transformation programs is roughly $21.1 billion, or 17 percent, rising to 22 percent over five years.

Protecting the homeland and bases of operation--the "highest transformational priority," Wolfowitz said--would receive $8 billion in fiscal 2003, including money for the exploration of missile-defense technologies that would be unconstrained by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty after June 2002. The proposal calls for $45.8 billion over the five years.

Denying enemies sanctuary would receive $3.2 billion in fiscal 2003 and $16.9 billion over five years. That budget line includes money for unmanned aircraft, nuclear submarines and ships.

The category of "projecting power" over long distances, which includes an upgrade of satellite-based global-positioning systems and new ships, aircraft and high-tech weapons, would receive $7.4 billion in fiscal 2003 and $53 billion over five years.

Plans to leverage information technology--by linking ground units with B-52 bombers via laptops in Afghanistan, for example--would get $2.5 billion next year and $18.6 billion over five years.

Intelligence initiatives would receive $174 million in fiscal 2003 $773 million over five years, while space operations would get $200 million next year and $1.5 billion over five years.

Wolfowitz defended the administration's request for a $10 billion flexible spending account after Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee raised doubts.

"It's absurd to call it, as some do, a slush fund," he said. Rather, the request simply preempts the department having to submit a supplemental request next year if costs exceed expectations, he said. "We don't know where we'll be in 2003," Wolfowitz said. "It's reasonable to assume we will have [additional] costs of $10 billion."