Did Lou Dobbs do that tonight too? He did something like that last night also. I may be still able to catch the last 45b minutes tonight. Meanwhile, here is another example of how the US will go bankrupt if we have 4 more years of Bush.
taipeitimes.com
US military questions budget
CONCERN: Top officers of the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps say they are worried about the Bush administration's plans to pay for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , WASHINGTON
Thursday, Feb 12, 2004,Page 6
In an unusual public display of differences with the White House, the top officers of the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force all raised questions on Tuesday about how the Bush administration plans to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after financing runs out at the end of September.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, three of the four chiefs of the armed services expressed concerns about a four-month financing gap for the two missions, whose combined cost is about US$5 billion a month.
They were left out of President Bush's budget request for the 2005 fiscal year, with the administration saying it would make a supplementary request for up to US$50 billion, probably next January -- after this year's elections.
"I am concerned," General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said in response to a question from Democratic Senator Jack Reed, "on how we bridge between the end of this fiscal year and whenever we could get a supplemental in the next year."
General Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps, and General John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, agreed with Schoomaker's concern.
Admiral Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said that unless major combat operations suddenly resumed in Iraq, the Navy would not be affected.
But the other three service chiefs warned they might to have to cut activities like training exercises to meet the possible funding shortfall. "We will have a challenge during that first quarter," Hagee told the senators.
"We're all concerned about maintaining continuity of operations," Schoomaker said in a brief interview after the hearing. "We want to make sure we minimize the bridge."
Schoomaker emphasized that the timing and mechanics of seeking a supplemental spending request were up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and White House officials. He said he was simply describing the possible consequences for the Army.
The Marines and especially the Army are shouldering the vast majority of the costs and the 110,000 troops now rotating into Iraq. The Air Force flies about 150 missions a day in support of operations in Iraq.
The service chiefs' remarks are certain to fuel accusations by congressional Democrats that by omitting the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan operations, the administration has masked the political and financial costs of the missions in an election year.
"It's a deceptive way to finance the operations of the military," Reed said.
At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld sought to allay any fears that delaying a supplemental request for several months would harm military operations. The military services have borrowed from other spending accounts to pay for unanticipated operations, and are then reimbursed months later by Congress.
"Until the funding is available from the supplemental, they draw down in other accounts," Rumsfeld said. "But you don't want to do it too long because it can cause distortions."
Independent budget analysts said using this same financing practice is more complicated this year because the Iraq and Afghanistan operations are costlier and more politically charged than previous missions.
"The chiefs are a bit anxious about this, because it is a lot of money and they can't take it for granted," said Steven Kosiak, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
Kosiak noted that the administration submitted its supplemental request for the current fiscal year last September, and said there was no budgetary reason the administration could not do the same later this summer for the 2005 supplemental request.
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense specialist at the Brookings Institution, said that the discretionary funds readily available to fill any funding gap could be exhausted by February or March. "The military doesn't want to feel like it's living week to week, hand to mouth at the Congress' mercy," O'Hanlon said.
During the three-and-a-half hour hearing on Tuesday, the service chiefs also described the additional training and preparations soldiers and Marines preparing to rotate into Iraq have received.
Marines who are replacing the 82nd Airborne Division west of Baghdad have drawn on neighborhood patrol procedures used by the Los Angeles Police Department as well as tactics the British army has employed in Northern Ireland.
Hagee and Jumper also said they had no doubts about the administration's prewar intelligence about Iraq's illegal weapons program. "I was absolutely convinced that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, if not biological weapons, and that he would use them when we crossed the line of departure," Hagee said.
Schoomaker described steps the Army was taking to improve combat readiness and the quality of life for soldiers and their families, including a plan to keep troops at their first post for six to seven years.
"We need to ask ourselves the opposite question we've always asked, and the question ought to be why are we moving this soldier?" Schoomaker said. "If the answer is, there's a good answer, then we'll move that soldier. But, if the answer is, well, because they've been here two or three years, and it's time to move, I don't think that cuts the mustard." |
