Army To Congress: If You Can't Stop Sequester, At Least Slow It Down

http://defense.aol.com/2013/04/23/army-to-congress-if-you-cant-stop-sequester-slow-it-is-back/



Army To Congress: If You Can't Stop Sequester, At Least Slow It Down
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: April 23, 2013

CAPITOL HILL: "Speed kills." It looks as if the Pentagon may well adopt that old highway-safety slogan as its new strategy to combat the so-called sequester, which will cut $500 billion from the defense budget over the next decade unless the White House and Congress can reach the ever-elusive "grand bargain" to reduce the deficit by other means. Commentators -- myself included -- have derided President Obama's 2014 defense budget, released this month, for assuming sequestration somehow goes away. But while most discussion focuses on the sheer size of the cuts, the Army's top two officials emphasized their timing in testimony today to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Rather than reduce the defense budget evenly by about $50 billion in each of the next decade, argued Army Secretary John McHugh, the cuts should be "backloaded into later fiscal years."

This morning's wide-ranging hearing on the Army budget ranged across subjects from homestate bases to overseas crises. In particular, the service's Chief of Staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, made sure to emphasize that 60,000 Army soldiers are still in harm's way in Afghanistan. He also suggested keeping 8,000 to 9,000 US troops there -- to hunt terrorists and to advise and support the Afghan force -- after regular combat forces are withdrawn in 2014. He was careful to defer to the commander in-country, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, to make the final recommendation to President Obama. (Dunford's boss, Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis, recommended a 13,600-strong residual force last month). "What we have to watch is the confidence of the Afghan security forces," Odierno said. "We think they're ready," he went on, but while they are fierce fighters, the Afghans remain painfully short on key "enablers," from air support to medical care to logistics, all currently provided by the US.

But the budget wars in Washington overshadowed the literal war abroad during the hearing. In fiscal 2013 alone -- which ends in just five months -- sequestration hits the Army for $7.6 billion, said Secretary McHugh. Add in another $7.8 billion in greater-than-expected wartime expenses not covered by the current Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, and that puts service $15.4 billion in the hole. One of the short-term sacrifices the Army has made to save money, Gen. Odierno said, was cutting training for combat brigades not specifically committed to Afghanistan. That, he added pointedly, reduces the Army's ability to respond to a crisis elsewhere -- say, Korea.

In the longer term, said Odierno, "it really puts into question our ability to deter potential future conflict." The Army already is set to shrink to 490,00 troops, barely enough to cover Pentagon plans for one "major theater war," said Odierno, and fully implementing the $50 billion a year reduction would require cutting another 100,000. If that happens, Odierno said, "we now put into question our ability to respond to large-scale major contingencies." (The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, made the same point in starker terms last week).



unhappycamper comment: A $500 billion dollar reduction (over ten years) is a lousy 5% of their budget. Five fucking percent.