Navy Needs Supplemental Cash If Syria Strikes Last Past September: CNO

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/09/05/navy-wants-supplemental-if-syria-strikes-last-past-september-cno/



$1.8 billion dollar Arleigh Burke destroyer

Navy Needs Supplemental Cash If Syria Strikes Last Past September: CNO
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on September 05, 2013 at 1:45 PM

WASHINGTON: If “this potential operation” against Syria continues into October, when the new fiscal year begins, the Navy’s going to need more money. That, in turn, means Congress has to act. Ideally, legislators would pass a supplemental spending bill, Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert said this morning. Failing a supplemental, though, Greenert said Congress would at least have to give the Navy “reprogramming authority” to fund combat operations by raiding other accounts, at the expense of other priorities.

“A supplemental might be the order of the day… as we work through how long operations are going to be,” Adm. Greenert told the audience at the American Enterprise Institute this morning.

It took 21 minutes into Greenert’s appearance for anyone to use Washington’s new s-word. and it was host John Kyl, former Republican senator, who first mentioned “Syria,” not Greenert. The admiral had carefully avoided the word in his opening remarks, although he alluded to “Mideast operations” in general terms, and instead focused on his familiar themes: the continued rebalancing to the Pacific, peaceful outreach to the Chinese, progress combating sexual assault, and the impacts of the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.

Kyl made sure to link the costs of a Syria operation to the sequester. Kyl has been a bitter critic of fellow Republicans who want deficit reduction even at the price of a strong defense. “Fortunately,” Kyl told reporters after the event, “I don’t think that represents the majority of members of the Republican party, but there is a group that has reversed that priority.”