By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post, 06 May 2002
As the House Armed Services Committee began its review last week of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's $ 379 billion budget request, the only intrigue seemed to involve how far lawmakers would go in raiding a $ 10 billion contingency fund for the war on terrorism to pay for their own pet defense projects.
But by the time the committee approved the Pentagon spending request -- a $ 52 billion increase over the current year -- late Wednesday night, an unexpected fight with Rumsfeld over a controversial Army artillery system called the Crusader added plenty of drama. The battle underscored just how hearty the appetite on Capitol Hill remains for defense spending -- and how hard it is to kill a weapons system, even one only in development.
Rumsfeld's top aides waited until Tuesday night to start telling committee members they had decided to cancel the $ 11 billion Crusader mobile artillery program. Eight years in development, it is now seen by advocates of military "transformation" as a relic of the Cold War. The committee responded immediately, adding language to the defense authorization bill to preserve $ 475 million in funding for the weapon in 2003 and blocking cancellation.
Rumsfeld has given the Army -- which is fiercely resisting efforts to kill the Crusader -- 30 days to consider alternatives.
Asked whether it is possible to actually cancel a weapons system in Washington, Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, was left shaking his head. "It is the hardest thing to do, to take a weapon out of the budget," he said. "It is just so easy to put one in."
Indeed, the House Armed Services Committee not only saved Crusader but also added $ 3.5 billion for production of other weapons systems, many of them popular job-creators back home. It revealed that, despite Rumsfeld's repeated calls for a greater emphasis on helping the armed forces adapt to new threats, the administration's proposed buildup ultimately will not be particularly geared toward transforming the military.
With polls showing the American people strongly behind President Bush's fight against terrorism at home and in Afghanistan, the war is fueling an appetite for defense spending that has, for the moment at least, superseded the usual election-year concerns on Capitol Hill about deficit spending.
"The Democrats and defense budget moderates more generally have already decided to punt this year on any kind of budget discipline," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution.
Leading Democrats have been as voluble as Republicans in complaining that the defense buildup isn't big enough to fund the war in Afghanistan and buy expensive ships and airplanes manufactured in their districts.
With the Senate Armed Services Committee due to take up the defense bill this week, a bipartisan group of senators, including Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) and George Allen (R-Va.) has asked that $ 3.5 billion be added to the Navy's shipbuilding budget, presumably by dipping into the $ 10 billion war reserve.
The House Armed Services Committee recently approved a plan to put off consideration of the $ 10 billion contingency fund until later in the year. In doing so, it moved $ 3.5 billion in war-related spending already included in the budget -- money for precision bombs, unmanned aerial vehicles, domestic combat air patrols, anti-terrorist programs and war pay -- into a separate $ 10 billion bill for the contingency fund.
That freed up $ 3.5 billion that the committee allocated to other spending priorities championed by House members, including $ 1 billion for Navy shipbuilding increases, 12 H-60 helicopters for the Army National Guard, 10 T-6 training aircraft for the Navy, six TH-67 training helicopters for the Army, and $ 96 million in Air Force funding for F-15 and F-16 engine upgrades.
The committee also added $ 550 million for a 1 percent increase in active-duty troop strength, or 12,650 new service members, that Rumsfeld has not requested.
One senior Pentagon official called any potential raid on the contingency fund "troublesome," arguing that such a move would send a message to al Qaeda that support for the war in Afghanistan does not go beyond the current fiscal year.
The official also questioned the wisdom of adding $ 1 billion to buy another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer or Virginia-class attack submarine, given the Navy's award last week of a $ 2.9 billion contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to begin work on a new class of attack ships, the DD(X) series.
But Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the procurement subcommittee, said his panel "tried desperately" to add enough funding to build one additional ship "to make a statement that shipbuilding is critically important."
While lawmakers from shipbuilding states such as Maine, Virginia and Mississippi are focused on bringing business home, Rumsfeld and senior Navy officials conceded that their $ 379 billion spending plan included funds for only five new ships, a rate insufficient to maintain the current 310-ship fleet.
A decision was made in the 2003 budget proposal to shortchange shipbuilding and numerous other procurement programs, they explained, to fully and honestly budget an additional $ 7 billion for operation and maintenance accounts that have been under-funded in past years.
Other previous obligations -- military pay raises and mushrooming health care costs for military members and retirees -- accounted for an additional $ 14.1 billion in the spending plan. These fixed costs help explain why money remains so tight -- and members of Congress so frustrated -- despite the biggest proposed defense increase in 15 years.
Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, credited the administration for honest accounting and defended House members for authorizing additional spending for procurement, given the strains the war is placing on troops, aging ships and 15- to 40-year-old aircraft.
Skelton also disagreed with analysts who say tough decisions about transforming the military have been deferred in favor of funding Cold War-vintage weapons systems.
"There is a difference between modernization and transformation," Skelton said. "But I don't fault the Pentagon for its recommendations, and I don't fault us. We're moving ahead with transformation. There is no end state in transformation; it's an ongoing thing. You'll never get there. Technology and new ways to fight with technology will always change."
O'Hanlon agrees with Skelton that military change is basically evolutionary. "But even if you believe in evolution, like I do," O'Hanlon said, "it obscures the fact that we're just planning to buy a lot of stuff that's too expensive, and all the rhetoric about transformation doesn't help you very much in trying to sort out those tough choices."
Canceling Crusader was an obvious place to start. "I'm glad [Rumsfeld] tried, but I also think it's important to win the fights you take on," O'Hanlon said. "I should say that two legs of the military triangle will be powerful enough to outweigh the other one -- the services and Congress should outweigh the secretary of defense."
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By Vernon Loeb. "Weapon Systems Die Hard, Especially on Capitol Hill," Washington Post, 06 May 2002.
Original URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37360-2002May5.html
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