Defense chief says action needed soon on war supplemental

As he unveiled a $585.4 billion request in new defense spending for fiscal 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress Monday to work quickly to approve $102.5 billion in additional war funding the military says it needs to continue operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

Pentagon leaders, who have grown increasingly impatient with Congress's slow action on war funding, warned that they need $16.8 billion in the still-pending request to pay soldiers past June. Wartime operations accounts will run dry by July, they said.

In addition, $43.6 billion requested for new equipment -- including $2.2 billion for 300,000 new sets of body armor -- is tied to congressional approval of the remaining FY08 war request, according to Pentagon officials who briefed reporters on the defense budget Monday.

"Delay degrades our ability to operate and sustain the force at home and in theater and makes it difficult to manage this department in a way that is fiscally sound," Gates said.

Of the $189.3 billion requested for Iraq and Afghanistan for FY08, Congress has approved $86.8 billion, including $16.8 billion for mine-resistant vehicles.

Pentagon comptroller Tina Jonas acknowledged that the delay in approving the remaining war balance for the current fiscal year added to the uncertainty of devising a full-year estimate for operational costs in fiscal 2009.

"It's not necessary" to have the $102.5 billion in hand to calculate what is needed for FY09 combat operations, Jonas said. "But it does make the conversation a little bit more difficult," she added.

Congress has required the administration to submit a full-year estimate of war-fighting costs along with its annual budget request, but Pentagon officials decided to attach only what they called a $70 billion "emergency allowance" to cover war costs for only the first few months of fiscal 2009.

The Defense Department plans to submit a full request for 2009 war spending later this spring, after receiving detailed assessments from commanders in the field on the status of current operations and the strategy for the future.

"It's my judgment that we could have provided a bogie, if you will, but it would have been less informed than it needed to be," Jonas said. "I don't believe we're going to be too much delayed on this. I believe that we'll understand pretty quickly and be able to provide the Congress with the full year's request."

The Pentagon's decision not to include a full-year estimate, as officials did last year, drew rebukes from Democrats, who have long urged the Defense Department to include war spending in their annual budget proposals.

"We all understand that there is a level of unpredictability with such budget estimates, but it is critical that we attempt to plan for expenses we know are coming," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said in a statement.

Skelton said it is "astonishing" that President Bush is waiting on the next war report from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, before submitting the full war request.

"Can you imagine President Truman passing the buck on the budget to General MacArthur during the Korean conflict?" Skelton asked, possibly foreshadowing how Democrats may challenge Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen when they testify before his panel later this week.

The overall $585.4 billion fiscal 2009 Defense budget, released Monday, includes a $515.4 billion request for the Defense Department alone -- a base budget that is $35.9 billion more than the amount enacted in fiscal 2008, a real increase of 5.5 percent.

The total package, including the $70 billion placeholder for the war, represents a "near-record" request for military spending, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

With significantly more war-related funding expected next year, it is "quite possible" that the 2009 budget could become the largest Defense budget, in real terms, since the end of World War II, according to the analysis.