By Jen DiMascio
Despite warnings from the secretary of defense and members of Congress, the Army maintains it can afford and has planned for its top modernization program–the Future Combat System (FCS).
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked a question about a $119 billion shortfall in its budget plan for increasing the size of the Army’s force. Looking at the cost of FCS and pressures on the defense budget, “it is hard form me to see how that program can be completed in its entirety,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee (Defense Daily, Feb. 7).
Yesterday, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, picked up on that thread and urged the Army to reduce its reset effort to pay for FCS.
“What we’re saying is in the future, if you want the FCS, you’ve got to take a chance on not resetting, rehabilitating as much as you want to in order to get the other, or we’re not going to be able to find the money, because it’s such a big bill,” Murtha said during a subcommittee hearing on the Army’s budget for the year.
Appropriators leaned forward, urging the Army to flag portions of FCS that could be funded in the near term, rather than resetting older pieces of equipment. The two key problems facing the Army, Murtha said, are the amount of available money for a system that some have projected to cost up to $200 billion over its life cycle and what FCS equipment is ready for fielding soon.
“We’re not going to get this done, if we don’t come up within the next two or three years a big portion of the money,” Murtha said. He added that he recently visited Ft. Bliss, Texas, where the Army is testing FCS equipment. Though FCS equipment is being tested by soldiers, it is not ready for fielding, he said.
Asked about Murtha’s comments, Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s chief of programs, insisted that the service can afford the collection of systems.
“The point we make is FCS is totally funded in the base budget, and it’s never more than one-third of our budget in a year. So you see, it is affordable, it is planned for, and it is funded,” Speakes said.
Speakes said that reset is a separate issue, because that is an expense paid for by supplemental funding and has been well supported by Congress. Because of the demanding rotation schedule due to the war in Iraq, the service has little flexibility and must reset equipment for another tour of duty.
“The implication is there’s something discretionary here,” Speakes said.