By Ann Roosevelt
A continuing resolution (CR) funding the services for the rest of Fiscal Year 2011 would see readiness decline, four military operations and plans officers told a House Armed Services Committee (HASC)Readiness panel.
In the hearing officials responded to panel Ranking Member Madeleine Bordallo’s (D-Guam) question on the impact of a CR on operational matters in FY ’11 and ’12. The Senate rejected two CRs this week that had attached to them full-blown FY ’11 defense appropriations bills. The Pentagon currently is funded at FY ’10 levels until March 18, when a CR funding the government at FY ’10 levels expires.
For the Army, a CR “comes down to operations and maintenance writ large,” meaning the service would do the necessary things to maintain forces going into the fight, said Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, deputy chief of staff for G-3/5/7. “The challenge is we’ll begin to defer maintenance and training to give us capability for the full spectrum. Based on a year-long continuing resolution we’d lose about $3 billion in our operations and maintenance budget and we’d have to focus our remaining resources clearly on the next to deploy.”
Particularly, that means deferring some of the full spectrum training scheduled for this year to regain capabilities such as airborne assault and tank on tank combat, he said.
The CR will “create deferred maintenance in this year and that bill will have to be paid at the same time we’re trying to fight a war in Afghanistan and close out major operations in Iraq,” Bolger said.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, said the O&M budget would be significantly affected. “The flying hour program and depot maintenance and depot-level repairables would all be deferred.”
There will also be concerns on the procurement side. “We were going to ramp up, for example, the MQ-9 purchase to provide more ISR to the fight,” Carlisle said. “We can’t increase that buy until we get a budget, so we’re stuck at a lower capability.”
That’s near-term procurement the service can’t do.
For the Navy, Vice Adm. Bruce Clingan, deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy, said the continuing resolution is having an effect on current and future readiness.
While the sea service will “guarantee” deploying forces are ready, when it finds itself in a situation where it needs to reduce flying hours and steaming days, those shortfalls will be “allocated against these forces we’re maintaining in our sustainment phase that are our surge forces to respond to crises that may emerge and in those forces that are preparing to deploy,” he said.
“We’ll see a decline in readiness to complete the mission set.”
Quite specifically, he said, “If the continuing resolution were to continue through the balance of the year, we would find ourselves canceling 29 of 85 maintenance availabilities for ships, 70 aircraft requiring depot maintenance wouldn’t get it, 290 engines wouldn’t get their overhauls, 140 maintenance and construction projects across about 74 bases wouldn’t be completed.”
Similar things would happen on the future readiness side, he said.
“We’d find ourselves not being able to procure two DDG-51s, which are BMD and multipurpose combatants, a Virginia-class submarine would not be procured, two reactor cores–one for an SSBN and one for a carrier would not be procured.”
Additionally “thousands” of orders for individual sailors would not be processed, so they might miss “important career milestones.”
As well, global Navy efforts to help partner nations improve their own security would be curtailed.
Marine Lt. Gen. Richard Tryon, deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations said equipment reset and future reconstitution is the greatest concern.
The continuing resolution affects the Marines in this current year and will have a ripple effect in the out years, he said.
Immediately coming to mind, Tryon said the CR means that $567 million in military construction contracts have not been awarded–$2.4 billion is at risk for the remainder of the year. Importantly, this would include updating some World War II housing into the 21st century.
Additionally, $71 million has not been awarded for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). There is $168 million in the budget for it, and this hold up “significantly hampers our ability to procure and build toward the future,” and Marines lose some of the economies of scale they enjoy when buying such things with other services.
Additionally, a shortfall of about $225 million is projected in flight hours, Tryon said. Though flying at normal rates now, the sortie-based training plan will be suspended sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. And, Marine air-ground and control system contracts have not been awarded.
“It won’t get any better because of the cost of recovery will only increase,” he said.
All officers agreed there are concerns that some service members will have to be diverted to do tasks civil servants would normally do, due to hiring freezes. As well, military construction projects are on hold.
After hearing the litany of service concerns, both similar and unique, Bordallo said, “A continuing resolution for the Department of Defense will only cost us more money and will certainly be very serious for our security in the future.”
Readiness Panel Chairman Rep. Randy Forbes (R- Va.), said: “We have to look and see how we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”