From the S&S archives:
Powell sees danger in budget pressures

RAMSTEIN AB, West Germany — Budget pressures in the United States and other NATO countries are steering the alliance toward unrealistic military cutbacks, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday.

Expressing pessimism about future defense funding, Gen. Colin L. Powell said proposed cutbacks "are not geared to the threat, not geared to exactly what's happening in the Soviet Union and not geared to our arms negotiations."

He said he saw no likelihood that U.S. defense spending would increase in the near future because legitimate concerns about meeting needs at home and reducing the deficit are competing heavily for tax dollars.

"But I wish they would find other ways to fund it besides coming after the defense budget and forcing us to make unilateral reductions," Powell said in an interview with The Stars and Stripes.

Turning to the U.S. role abroad, Powell said a proposal in Congress to eliminate 14,000 military positions made available through Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty reductions does not make good military sense.

Instead, Powell favors a Bush administration proposal to "give 7,000 back" to the U.S. European Comd and eliminate the remaining 7,000.

He dismissed attempts by some members of Congress to coerce the U.S. allies into shouldering more of the NATO defense burden, describing such efforts as a strategy unlikely to work.

But the 52-year-old general cited NATO's willingness to help pay for the 401st Tac Fighter Wing's move from Torrejon AB, Spain, to Crotone, Italy, as an example of burden-sharing that Congress has been unwilling to accept so far.

Powell said, "I hope it shakes out well. It would be very unwise of the Congress to take any action that prevents us from moving the 401st to Crotone. I hope they will come to the same conclusion."

U.S. forces will play a greater role in fighting the drug war, regardless of whether a conventional military threat exists, Powell said."I expect that we will start to use cavalry units, reconnaissance units and aviation units ... to help law enforcement ... in monitoring activities across our very long border with Mexico," he said.

Powell, who took office Oct. 1, previously commanded the Forces Comd, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. He noted that the military cannot, by law, engage in law enforcement activity.

However, he said one of his last acts as chief of Forces Comd was "to prepare plans that would make greater use of military forces" in supporting law enforcement agencies that combat illegal drug trafficking along the U.S. border with Mexico. "And now those plans are coming to fruition " Powell said.