http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2006/a...0-6f30s1129.htm

Congress stiffs troops on equipment
By Joe Galloway
07-01-2006
The chiefs of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps this week begged Congress not to do what it’s done for decades — force our military to rob Peter to pay Paul, even in wartime.
Army chief Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker and Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee are clearly concerned by a budget process on Capitol Hill that, in essence, hangs their services out to dry when it comes to providing the money to fix or replace equipment that’s worn out or destroyed by combat.

With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dragging on for years already and, if we take President Bush at his word, probably for several more years, the Army and Marines are grinding down their vehicles and aircraft at a rate that’s approaching $17 billion a year to repair or replace.

But Congress isn’t coming up with all the money that’s needed in anything like a timely fashion. This year’s bill for what the military calls "resetting" the machinery of war includes nearly $5 billion that was carried over from last year because Congress didn’t provide sufficient funds.

That’s forced the military chiefs to begin dipping into other funds to pay for items that have an immediate impact on our military’s readiness and combat capability. Toward the end of each fiscal year, that typically means tapping base maintenance funds, military housing accounts, the travel budget, and operations and maintenance budgets.

What this translates to, Gen. Schoomaker told lawmakers, is that when 9/11 came along, Army budget accounts in the preceding decade had been underfunded by about $100 billion, and half a million soldiers had been cut out of the Army. It meant that when we invaded Iraq in early 2003, the Army had $56 billion worth of equipment shortages.

Although the need to fix and replace the equipment that’s being eaten up in Iraq and Afghanistan is growing more acute, congressional budget masters are already beginning to consider doing away with the supplemental appropriations bills that fund those wars outside the normal defense budget strictures. But money for fixing or replacing the equipment has come from those supplemental budgets.

One influential retired Army general warned this week that the end of the wars we’re now fighting doesn’t mean an end to funding for equipment eaten up by those wars. In fact, the two service chiefs told Congress that this money would be needed for two or three years after the end of combat operations so our military can be ready for its next mission, or for continuing the global war on terrorism.

Schoomaker told the legislators he also was worried that any defense funding crunch would begin to eat away at the money that’s needed for the Army’s ambitious $160 billion Future Combat Systems program.

That fear was made very real by the Department of Defense’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review, which looks out 20 years and sets priorities for big-ticket items such as weapons systems. Although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had pledged to cut back or do away with huge and outmoded Cold War programs such as the F-22 fighter and nuclear submarines, he didn’t.

The Army and the Marines, who’ve borne the brunt of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, know all too well what that means. They even have an acronym for it: BOHICA, or Bend Over, Here It Comes Again!

Meanwhile, the harsh environments in which our soldiers and Marines are operating is consuming equipment such as Humvees, helicopters, heavy trucks, Bradley fighting vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks at a rate four times higher than normal. The need to combat improvised roadside bombs by adding heavy armor to the thin-skinned Humvees and the heavy trucks that supply the troops only accelerates the wear and tear.

However these wars end, it would be a crying shame if they leave our country — as most of our other wars have — with an exhausted and broken military that lacks the equipment and the ammunition needed to defend us in a world that’s becoming more dangerous as Iran and North Korea pursue their nuclear ambitions.

Both Congress and the Bush administration have an obligation to ensure that the past is not prologue in this regard, but I wouldn’t hold my breath hoping that things will change for the better.

Joe Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder.