Army End Strength and FY05 DOD Appropriations

ARMY END STRENGTH AND FY05 DOD APPROPRIATIONS

Mr. REED. Mr. President, last week, the Senate by a vote of 94 to 3, passed the Reed-Hagel-McCain amendment to increase the Army's end strength by 20,000.

This overwhelming vote was an acknowledgement that the administration has consistently underestimated and tried to avoid publicly admitting the real number of troops needed to win the peace in Iraq. That amendment was one step to bring our Iraq policy in line with the realities of Iraq.

However, the Defense authorization bill and the Defense appropriations bill before us today both continue to sidestep the budgetary realities of our military involvement in Iraq. Just 2 days ago, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz testified that "it's entirely possible" that U.S. troops could be stationed in Iraq for years.

If a long-term deployment of U.S. troops is "entirely possible", then the administration and Congress have a duty to properly budget for it.

When we know we are adding more troops and we know that we have significant commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Colombia, and elsewhere, we should put those costs into the annual Defense appropriations bill, not a supplemental appropriations bill or a contingency fund as the administration calls it.

By making these known costs subject to supplemental appropriations, we not only pretend that these costs are not long term, we also create an ongoing budget problem for the Army. This situation is all the more shocking when one considers the consistent claims from both sides of the aisle that we will provide our military with whatever it needs to win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, since the Iraq war began, the Army has had to continuously cobble together the resources to pay for more troops out of its regular budget. So instead of replacing or repairing destroyed equipment, buying HUMVEEs or body armor, or fulfilling other obligations, the Army has had to eat its seed corn.

It is true that the Army has also gotten supplemental funds on occasion to pay for additional soldiers, but only after it has exhausted all of the reprogramming options I just mentioned.

In the short run, reprogramming and supplemental appropriations are an option, but Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea are not options. They are real, and the pressure on the Army's budget is real. Unless, we increase the size of the Army's regularly appropriated budget to include the costs of the Army's real personnel levels, I fear that the Army will continue to delay needed expenditures, put off necessary investments, all so the administration can attempt to minimize the costs of the war on terror.

I want to be clear, this is not the fault of the Appropriations Committee. It has done its job well and has continually worked to make the Army whole. But, the committee and the bill before us are constrained by the administration's inflexibility and demands that known, long-term costs must be hidden in contingency reserve accounts and other budgetary maneuvers.

It would be my desire to increase the size of the Army's personnel budget by moving the $2 billion in supplemental funds for this very purpose into the Army's annual fiscal year 2005 appropriation. I believe it would be more appropriate to take the $2 billion we know we'll spend out of the supplemental section of this bill and put it into the Army's regular budget just like all of the Army's other long term costs.

In deference to the chairman and ranking member and the fact that such a proposal would likely require waiving the Budget Act as well as the Senate's endorsement of my amendment and Senator Levin's amendment that calls on the administration to put the true costs of Army end strength in its fiscal year 2006 budget request, I did not offer this amendment.

However, if the administration persists in trying to sweep these costs under the rug, Congress must act to include these funds in the regular budget of the Army.

I am also concerned that this year's bill has consolidated the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program under a single line item. While the peer review programs are united in their goal of improving detection, treatment and hopefully one day, prevention of deadly diseases such as leukemia, prostate, ovarian and breast cancer, they are each unique in their design, focus and stage of development. However, there is a valid concern that placing these programs under a single line item may inevitably pit them against one another. The fledgling Ovarian Cancer Research Program, which was only established in 1997 and has been level funded at $10 million per year, will be competing with the much larger breast cancer program that has been in operation for over 12 years and is funded at a healthy $150 million.

I hope that I and other Senators can work with the Chairman and ranking member to find a way to protect the critical and specific health research on cancer that the Department of Defense has been able to support in the past.