Defense budget likely to continue uptick if House or Senate changes hands
Democratic leaders would probably focus less on missile defense and more on congressional oversight of the Pentagon.
If Democrats control the House or Senate next year, lawmakers responsible for overseeing the military's funding and policy initiatives probably would support the upward trend in military spending.
Democrats would be more inclined than their GOP counterparts to rein in funding for ballistic missile defense and new nuclear weapons, but the Pentagon's annual spending -- $446 billion authorized in fiscal 2005 -- would continue to grow.
That said, one area in which Democratic leaders likely would distinguish themselves is congressional oversight of the Pentagon -- on everything from procurement policy and sexual assault in the military to intelligence and the administration's handling of wartime detainees.
Senate Armed Services ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., and House Armed Services ranking member Ike Skelton, D-Mo., could be expected to rank as a top priority the scrutiny of the Defense Department's policy and financial management.
Last week, Levin released the results of a minority staff inquiry he began in June 2003 on pre-war intelligence, which asserted that intelligence tying Iraqi officials with al Qaeda terrorists was exaggerated by high-ranking Defense Department officials to justify the Iraq invasion. Although he initially sought a bipartisan inquiry, Levin broke with Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., who preferred to wait for the results of a Senate Intelligence Committee study on the same topic, a move that might be indicative of the intense focus Levin would place on the committee's oversight role.
Levin also has a strong record on Pentagon acquisition practices and likely would work to institute more effective management controls over Pentagon contracts. Levin led an effort in the early 1980s to enact the Competition in Contracting Act and to eliminate billions of dollars of unneeded inventory from Pentagon warehouses in the early 1990s. He has also worked to overhaul the Pentagon's financial management system and to require the department to compete for services contracts and to pay contractors based on performance.
Likewise, as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Skelton would prove no shrinking violet when it comes to accountability from Pentagon and administration officials. Although Skelton has not come out strongly against the war in Iraq, he has criticized the administration's post-conflict planning and called for more coalition involvement in the conflict to reduce strain on the stretched military.
A conservative Democrat, Skelton likely would continue to support the reconstruction, as well as efforts to train and equip a large national Iraqi security force. Yet, Skelton has voted with his party to support two "resolutions of inquiry" that Democrats introduced over the past year in an effort to wrest from the Bush administration a secret report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on so-called "lessons learned" regarding pre-Iraq war intelligence, as well as administration documents relating to the treatment of prisoners held at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Although the GOP killed these measures, both offered Skelton a chance to depart from his usually non-partisan stance to probe allegations of mismanagement and malfeasance. A Skelton-led committee might be more inclined than the Republican-led panel to challenge a Republican administration on the conduct of operations in Iraq and on other fronts.
Other key issues for Levin and Skelton include a new round of military base closures in 2005, a contested Pentagon plan that both are expected to support. Levin would almost certainly scale back the administration's national missile defense program, which the president plans to field this year despite the fact that the Pentagon's chief weapons tester has concluded the system has not yet demonstrated operational capability. And Skelton could place more emphasis and funding on supporting troops in light of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through quality-of-life measures, increased end-strength and military education.