Army draws up $11 billion wish list to meet unfunded needs

The Army will send a roughly $11 billion funding wish list for fiscal 2008 to Capitol Hill that includes a desire for additional money for new vehicles and other gear, Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Friday morning.

Testifying at a budget hearing that turned bitterly partisan, Schoomaker outlined a list of so-called unfunded requirements -- items that did not make the cut for inclusion in the Army's fiscal 2008 wartime and base budgets -- that is substantially higher than similar requests in fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2006, which together totaled $12.2 billion.

The list includes additional funds for the Mine Resistant Anti-Ambush Protected Vehicle, an Army-Marine Corps program whose V-shaped hull will offer better protection from roadside bombs, Schoomaker said. It also includes more funding for aircraft survivability equipment for Army planes and helicopters not deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as more money to buy night-vision devices and fix the service's truck fleet, he said. It also includes $2 billion to make up shortfalls in fiscal 2007 base closure accounts.

During the hearing, the four-star general called the Army's past statements that it will need supplemental funding two years after the end of the Iraq conflict a "conservative" estimate. The service actually will continue to need billions of dollars for at least three years after the conflict to repair and replace equipment lost or damaged during operations, he disclosed.

Meanwhile, both Army Secretary Francis Harvey and Schoomaker told lawmakers about continued readiness shortfalls in nondeployed forces, stating the service will not be fully equipped until 2013. For "next-to-deploy [units], we're scrambling," Harvey said. "But we're catching up a bit."

The Army leaders stressed that deployed units have adequate training and equipment to handle their missions.

The hearing, the subcommittee's first public meeting on the Bush administration's $716.5 billion defense spending request sent to Congress this week, generated open partisan rancor over the Iraq war. At one point, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., fired a shot at Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen after the New Jersey Republican asked Army leaders about congressional calls to gradually withdrawal U.S. forces from Iraq. Murtha argued that the hearing was on Army readiness and the budget request.

"You've been needling me the whole time I've been chairman because you're upset you're in the minority," said Murtha, who in November 2005 made headlines by calling for a six-month withdrawal from Iraq "at the earliest practicable date." When House Appropriations ranking member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., chuckled at the comment, Murtha snapped: "It's not laughable. It's a fact."

House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., meanwhile, defended the House Democrats' decision to add $1 billion to base-closure accounts to the continuing resolution, which funds most of the government at fiscal 2006 levels. Republicans have argued that base-closure accounts still are short $3.1 billion this fiscal year.

Obey stressed that Republicans forced Democrats' hand when they failed to pass nine of the 11 funding bills, including the Military Construction spending bill. He also reiterated his plans to pay for base-closures out of the fiscal 2007 wartime supplemental spending bill Congress should pass this spring. That pledge did not pacify Lewis. "We will watch with interest," he said.