Panel setting stage for Pentagon budget boost
House Armed Services Committee might use its own in-depth review of U.S. armed forces and security threats as leverage to ask for additional funding.
The House Armed Services Committee might use its own in-depth review of U.S. armed forces and security threats as leverage to ask for additional funding for some of the military's top programs and personnel needs, panel leaders said Thursday.
While the main goal of the review is to provide the committee with a better understanding of the military's requirements for the next two decades, it ultimately might give members a "stronger voice before the Budget Committee on work we ourselves have done here in Congress," Armed Services ranking member Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said.
The committee's review is running parallel to and is expected to complement the Pentagon's sweeping Quadrennial Defense Review of military capabilities, plans and strategy, due to Congress in February.
Committee members have said they do not intend to second-guess the Pentagon's work, but rather want to ensure Congress gets all the information necessary to evaluate the department's study.
But unlike the Pentagon review, the committee does not plan to take budgetary restrictions into account.
"Let's figure out what it takes to defend America and we'll put a price tag on it," Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said.
Historically, the Defense Department has kept its review process under tight wraps, unveiling its final conclusions only after it makes a series of decisions that affect everything from high-tech transformation programs to the number of ground troops needed.
In years past, the congressional defense committees have received only the Defense Department's final QDR study, with little to no information about the decisions -- sometimes dollar-driven -- that defense officials had to make along the way.
"You don't see the choices," Hunter said. "What you see are the results of a winnowing process."
The committee's review, which could be completed as early as next year, will give members more thorough information about the military's hardware and personnel needs, as well as potential threats facing the United States, when they mark up the Defense Department's fiscal 2007 budget request next spring.
"At least the risks that we take are calculated risks," Hunter said. "You see the complete picture and are able to walk down from there."
Hunter said the department has been supportive of the committee's efforts, and acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has offered to cooperate with the review and provide access to reports and other information.
The committee launched its review this week with two hearings on threats in Latin America and Eurasia. Over the next few weeks, a 12-member "threat panel" -- divided equally among Republicans and Democrats -- will review threats in all regions of the world.
Afterward, a group of committee members called the "gap panel" will discuss existing U.S. military capabilities and future defense requirements, mainly to determine if the country has the right mix of forces to meet future needs.
Both Hunter and Skelton emphasized Thursday that the review is "nonpartisan."