Air Force seeks to recover funds diverted to Army

Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley said Tuesday that $800 million in Air Force funds recently turned over to the increasingly cash-strapped Army will need to be recovered within several months to make his payroll and cover other required personnel costs later this year.

"I don't want to have concerns about getting that money back," said Moseley, referring to the Pentagon's unusual request to Congress for permission to transfer $1.6 billion from Navy and Air Force personnel accounts to pay for the Army's pressing operational needs overseas. "It would be a breach of faith to take milper [military personnel] money out of the service and then fast-forward a couple of quarters and then just say, 'Eat it,' " the four-star general said at a breakfast meeting with reporters.

Moseley, who warned House appropriators earlier this year against raiding his accounts to pay for the needs of the heavily deployed ground forces, also said he has asked to recover $1 billion scrubbed from Air Force procurement accounts in the fiscal 2007 wartime supplemental to pay for what the Bush administration calls the "surge" of troops into Baghdad.

Moseley estimated the Air Force needs an additional $20 billion annually to fulfill all requirements. That money, he added, is needed in part to pay for repairing and replacing an aging fleet of aircraft that has significantly declined in readiness over the last several years. And he emphasized that modern air and sea power -- which have taken a back seat to ground forces during the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- are crucial to dissuading and deterring worldwide threats.

"If you don't have that, then you become a junior varsity," Moseley said. "So the United States military in today's world [has] to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time."

During a wide-ranging interview, Moseley also discussed China's rising air power, stating that the country's "long-range aviation is becoming increasingly capable." China, which has been pouring money into expanding its military in recent years, now has a more capable fleet of aerial refueling tankers, and has produced two new classes of fighter jets, Moseley said.

The Chinese air force has also improved its sensors and weapons and is modernizing its existing airplanes with new onboard systems. China's air force is becoming a "force extension," he said, quickly gaining the ability to go beyond neighboring Taiwan.

Moseley's comments Tuesday echoed concerns aired repeatedly by Navy officials, who have been sounding alarm bells over the rapidly maturing Chinese navy. "This is not an idle notion of a country that's just discovered the Wright brothers' airplane," Moseley added. "This is a country that is very serious about ... their air and space assets."

In January, China ran an anti-satellite missile test, during which it destroyed one of its own weather satellites. The test caused some alarm in Washington, where lawmakers and military officials still are unclear about China's motives. Moseley warned that should China shoot down another country's satellite, it would be considered an act of war.