Pentagon wants extra $10 million for Northern Command

The Defense Department has included $10 million in its fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations request to help set up the proposed Northern Command, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

The command would defend the United States and help civilian authorities respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction, the officials said.

The $10 million included in the request would go toward the Northern Command transition team, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim told the Senate Appropriations Committee. Defense has also included $81 million in its fiscal 2003 budget to begin Northern Command operations, Zakheim said. The fiscal 2003 budget request also includes $215 million for related secure command and control activities, but that would not be specifically for the Northern Command, he said.

The Northern Command is expected to begin operations Oct. 1, although no commander has yet been named, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the committee. The Northern Command will take over the U.S. Space Command's current responsibility for the Northern American Aerospace Command (NORAD), as well as activities from the U.S. Joint Command, Rumsfeld said.

"The biggest thing that's being assigned to Northern Command is NORAD, in terms of numbers of activities and organization structure," Rumsfeld said.

The National Guard needs to be more fully involved in the Northern Command, said Senator Christopher Bond, R-Mo. The Pentagon should examine the idea of naming a National Guard commander as a Northern Command deputy commander, Bond said.

"These are men and women who live in almost every community in America. They are undoubtedly not only the most readily available, but also the eyes and the ears for national defense," Bond said. "So I would urge ... a careful consideration to that role for the Guard."

Rumsfeld said, however, that he believes the National Guard could be used for homeland defense but does not have to be limited to such missions.

"I don't think of homeland security as the sole responsibility of the Guard, and I think that ... we're not organized and arranged for that to be the case," Rumsfeld said.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said the Pentagon must better account for money that Congress already has allocated for the war on terrorism and homeland security before he will support the department's supplemental request.

The Pentagon's fiscal 2002 $14 billion supplemental request includes $7 billion for combat operations, $4 billion to support the reserves, $1.5 billion for command and control and intelligence functions, $500 million to replaced used ordinance and $1 billion for other activities, according to Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.

About $11 billion of the supplemental request is expected to go into a Defense Emergency Response Fund to support the war on terrorism, Byrd said. The fund will be made up of the $7 billion allocated for combat operations and the $4 billion for the reserves, according to a Byrd spokesman. The Pentagon, however, has not adequately defined how it would use the money in this fund, Byrd said.

"This request for $11 billion is a tremendous amount of money, and I think Congress ought to have better strings attached than simply to put this money into a fund and allow the Defense Department to disburse it without further ado, virtually," Byrd said.

Congress has already given the Pentagon more than $17 billion to support the war on terrorism, which the department has said will run out by the end of the month, Byrd said. Out of that funding, the Defense Department has committed about $14 billion, and of that, has spent $12 billion, Zakheim said.

Defense, however, has not informed Congress as to how it has spent this $17 billion, Byrd said, adding he would have difficulties supporting future funding requests without this information.

"I want to be supportive. I want to help the Defense Department. But I also have a responsibility to the taxpayers and to the Senate and to the other members of the committee," Byrd told Rumsfeld. "We want this information. If you have it, let us have it. Otherwise, you're not going to get the support from this chairman for what you're asking for."