Vice chiefs: Funding shortage making military sacrifice future readiness
By Sandra Jontz,
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has enough money to maintain
readiness for about one more month. Afterward, operations for the remainder of fiscal year
2001 are really going to start to feel the pinch, leaders told Congress on
Tuesday.
In addition, the services may be ready to fight and win a war today,
but they are sacrificing future readiness to make ends meet, the vice chiefs of staff from
each of the services told lawmakers on the Military Readiness Subcommittee of the House
Armed Services Committee.
“I believe we have reached the point where we can no longer
afford to pour scarce resources into maintaining aging legacy systems at the expense of
modernizing the force,” said Assistant Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Williams.
A funding shortage has had a dramatic effect on readiness, morale,
retention and recruitment, they said.
The Army, for example, is experiencing a 40 percent budget shortfall
in filling critical infrastructure needs, such as sewer lines, water, heat and electrical
systems. There is barely enough funding to make it to the end of the month, much less the
end of the fiscal year.
The other service leaders echoed the cry for cash.
“If we don’t get supplemental [funds] quickly, [we’re]
going to be doing some serious damage to the force,” said Adm. William Fallon, vice
chief of Naval Operations.
Without the $5.6 billion supplemental the White House has asked of
Congress on behalf of the Pentagon, lights might go out, fuel bills might not get paid,
and necessary training to keep the forces in peak fighting condition will lag.
However, the shortage of funding won’t affect current pay
schedules or health benefits.
For fiscal 2001, Congress appropriated about $111 billion for
operation and maintenance. About half of the $5.6 billion in extra funding the
administration is requesting will go for operation and maintenance.
The fiscal 2001 supplemental won’t solve all the military’s
woes, service officials say, but it will go a long way to paying for critical readiness
needs.
For example:
$1 billion would pay for flying hours for the Air Force and Navy;
$734 million would pay for increased utility bills; and
$317 million would pay for Army maintenance and base operations.
Unforeseen cost increases such as utilities and fuel and unscheduled
and unbudgeted deployments contributed to the shortfalls.
In order to keep pace with the rising cost of doing military
business, the Army has “depressed” several modernization and recapitalization
accounts. Since 1988, the Army has killed 103 programs.
“That’s extraordinary,” Gen. John Keane, vice chief of
staff of the Army, said.
More than 75 percent of the Army’s major combat systems exceed
the half-life of their expected service, and two-thirds of installations are rated C-3 or
C-4, meaning that mission performance is impaired or significantly impaired, he said.
The U.S. Navy is building fewer than than seven ships a year, which
is nowhere near enough to maintain the already-depleted fleet of 316 ships, Fallon said.
“The bottom line [is], we need more ships,” he told the
subcommittee members.
Each of the service leaders clamored for Congress to quickly disperse
supplemental funding.
“Your support of the [fiscal] ’01 supplemental will help us
hold the line and maintain our readiness, albeit at its current less-than-acceptable
level,” Air Force Gen. John Handy, the vice chief of staff, said in a written
statement.
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