By Jen DiMascio
As of Dec. 1, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) will have no more funding for new contracts and will only sustain current contracts and keep its headquarters staff and intelligence analysis operations running.
“We are going to run out of money,” retired Army Gen. Montgomery Meigs told reporters during a Pentagon briefing yesterday.
Although the organization has $120 million in funding from the Pentagon’s annual budget, the bulk of the JIEDDO’s high-powered budget comes from emergency supplementals. This year’s request for JIEDDO is about $4 billion, and its requirements through next March run in the neighborhood of $2.6 billion.
In two separate bills that would have provided four or six months of war funding, Congress had proposed providing $1.6 billion for JIEDDO.
Neither of those bills passed the Senate with enough votes to become law. Typically, the second supplemental has not passed until July, Meigs said.
Congress will not return to session until Dec. 3, and senators left uncertain about whether they would take up stopgap funding before the end of the year.
That leaves a “monstrous” list of unfunded requirements, Meigs said.
After the first of next month, he will have no money new equipment, home station training and other training requests.
That puts on the sidelines items like one training tool the organization wants to field soon for surrogate IEDs.
“The technology’s there to do it, and it’s simple to buy. We could get it out there pretty quickly. We just don’t have the money,” Meigs said. “We aren’t going to be doing anything new, without additional funds, nothing. Just steady state, running the store, keep the lights, on keep the intel fusion operation going.”
JIEDDO is seeking to reprogram funding to help, but Meigs said he was uncertain how much money that would provide, if approved.
He has just days left to speak out. Meig’s last day with the JIEDDO is Nov. 30. Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, who is currently the deputy commanding general of Army Training and Doctrine Command and previously served as the commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq, has been nominated to succeed him (Defense Daily, Nov. 1).