Defense seeks to shift $190M to improve armor for Humvees

Despite administration assertions that the U.S. military does not need increased fiscal 2005 funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon recently asked lawmakers to shift $190 million in fiscal 2004 money from other military accounts to pay for armor kits for the Humvees used in Iraq. The kits provide troops with additional protection from small arms fire and improvised explosives.

The Army plans to use the reprogrammed money to pay for M915 and FMTV truck kits, as well as underbody armor and air-conditioning kits for Humvees. The funds would be shifted from a fiscal 2004 appropriation that would have procured 36 Force Provider modules, the Army's containerized tent cities that can be shipped by air, land or sea and combined in various ways to meet different base camp needs.

"The need for add-on armor kits is of the highest priority to directly protect the lives of our deployed forces and outweighs the requirement for additional Force Provider Modules," the department stated in its fiscal 2004 reprogramming action approved last Wednesday by Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim.

The Pentagon's 2005 budget proposal calls for a 7 percent increase in military spending, although it fails to provide funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There was no money for armored kits in the [2005] budget request," said a spokesman for Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., although the Pentagon did include $163 million to procure 818 partly armored Humvees in the FY05 defense budget request. "They're still trying to avoid having to say there is a need for a supplemental appropriation to cover all the costs" associated with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the spokesman said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told lawmakers that his department was sufficiently funded through the end of this fiscal year, and that a 2005 supplemental funding request expected in January would allow the department to further fund contingency operations.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker said he was concerned about bridging the gap between the end of fiscal 2004 and the anticipated supplemental spending request next January. In a Monday statement, Reed urged Rumsfeld to send the department's supplemental spending request to lawmakers as soon as possible. "If we don't see a supplemental by the middle of the summer, the United States' military faces a severe funding problem," Reed said.