Brass Wants Big Bucks

America's military chiefs went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to put Congress on notice that the Armed Forces need more money to get ready for future conflicts.

Presiding over the testimony and questioning of Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Shelton and the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines' top dogs, Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner emphasized that he wanted to keep presidential politics out of the hearing room, but fellow senators raised the George W. Bush and Al Gore defense agendas anyway.

Shelton and fellow brass told the panel that the United States is ready to fight two major theater wars ("MTW's" to the military men), but the services are straining under the weight of aging equipment, aging troops and an unprecedented number of deployments in trouble spots around the world.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan said combat unit readiness is "down 20 percent over the last decade" and the average Air Force aircraft is 22 years old.

Defense spending shrank from the end of the Cold War until a couple of years ago, with a temporary uptick during the Persian Gulf War.

The brass made it clear they need more funds to stay modern and ready.

"Continuing to improve current readiness posture to desired levels while preparing for tomorrow's challenges will require additional resources," Shelton said.

Shelton emphasized that there's nothing wrong with America's front line, "first to fight" forces, but the "third and fourth tier" backup resources are wanting and that could mean more casualties.

The generals also testified about the peculiar costs of maintaining an all-volunteer force that needs to compete for employees with a booming civilian economy. "Keeping people is the hardest part," said Gen. Ryan. (You're not in your father's Navy anymore when the Chief of Naval Operations says sailors' "quality of life" issues are among his top five priorities).

The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin, quibbled with Republican Sens. Tim Hutchinson and Jeff Sessions about which presidential candidate had promised more money for defense, even putting into the record a supposedly damning printout from the Bush campaign's Web site.

"I am afraid we have crossed the line on this politics," said an exasperated Warner, who turned the microphone over to Democratic colleague Max Cleland, a former VA Administrator, imploring him, "Put a little humor in this thing, will you?"

Cleland quoted Mark Twain, then observed that between deployments and stingy defense budgets, "We've got both feet firmly planted on a banana peel."

The partisan sniping was over the candidates' campaign trail commitments to defense spending.

Gore has promised $100 billion in new national security spending; an aggregate, or "top line" figure, it includes military pay raises and new equipment.

Bush, for now, has promised just $45 billion specifically for pay raises and research and development of new technologies. He has not assigned a number to all other defense spending, like weapons procurement, or his ambitious land- and sea-based missile defense program.

Bush says his administration would do a comprehensive evaluation of the military and its commitments before making new spending commitments.

The night before the generals faced the senators, Bush told Larry King, "The truth of the matter is we're overextended around the world and … I think we ought to review every single mission."

Bush has been especially critical of the use of American troops in NATO peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Bosnia, a responsibility he thinks belongs to European countries.

Bush's campaign has emphasized military and defense issues more than Gore.

The Texas governor has the endorsements of several eminent retired generals. He says there's a morale problem in the military and implies he'd be a more respected commander-in-chief than President Clinton.

Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, said, "The great paradox is, all other things being equal, they're liable to get more from Gore than from Bush." Gore has a campaign promise to keep, said Korb, and if Bush's top-down review shows the armed forces do not need more money, "Who's going to complain, Gephardt and Bonior?"

Korb says the generals are "very, very shrewd" about how they define their needs, citing 400,000 troops for each half of a two-theater war, and pointing to peacekeeping missions as a heavy caseload. In fact, he says, "These [Clinton era] peacekeeping operations have consumed less than 3 percent of the overall defense budget."

From the generals' testimony, "You would think the world is falling apart and yet they've never been better," continues Korb, who says despite the very different threats of the post-Cold War world, the Pentagon still gets "91 percent of the Cold War budget."

The military budget for 2002, which will be sent to Congress by the Pentagon early next year, is expected to go over $300 billion, but Republicans have said the spending in future years must rise more sharply.