Pentagon official seeks action on pending fiscal 2008 war supplemental
Delay could hinder the military's ability to operate and sustain its forces.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England urged Congress Tuesday to work quickly on the remaining $102.5 billion requested this year to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cautioning that any delay would hinder the military's ability to operate and sustain its forces. During testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, England said the Defense Department is not able to place orders for much of the new equipment it needs to repair and replace lost and damaged gear until Congress approves the rest of the fiscal 2008 request -- a situation that will worsen over the next several months.
"The Department of Defense is like the world's biggest supertanker," England said in his written remarks. "It cannot turn on a dime and cannot be steered like a skiff." Complicating matters are the upcoming presidential elections and the change of administration, which amount to a "planned disruption," England said. He told the panel, "It will be extraordinarily difficult to manage the department and to maintain our security, both for our people in combat and for our citizens, if we're also at that time in a budget turmoil like we were last year." It is "vitally important that we have some consistency," he added. Congress has approved $86.8 billion for the wars for this year, and lawmakers expect to consider this spring another supplemental to cover costs for the rest of fiscal 2008.
England defended the White House's decision to include only $70 billion for what it called an "emergency allowance" for the military campaigns along with its fiscal 2009 budget proposal, rather than a full-year estimate for war expenditures as Congress has required. The decision to seek only a fraction of what likely will be required next year, England said, came from OMB.
"Nonetheless," he said, "it partly reflected my views on the matter." Bush administration officials have said they are waiting for an assessment this spring from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, which should provide more clarity on the amount of funding needed for operations next year. It would be "dishonest" to provide Congress with an estimate the Pentagon ultimately could not support, England said.
Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., both said they were disappointed that the fiscal 2009 requested lacked a war-related cost estimate that would pay for operations for the full year. "Budgeting is trying to bring some predictability out of uncertainty," Conrad said, adding that it was the Pentagon's obligation to provide a full war estimate for fiscal 2009. Last week, Defense Secretary Gates estimated that the military will need $170 billion for the wars in fiscal 2009, but quickly cautioned that he has "no confidence in that figure."
England said that figure, provided in response to questioning by Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., was more a guess than an estimate. But he called it a "rational number" based on previous war expenditures. England said he expected the full fiscal 2009 request to be on Capitol Hill sometime in late spring.