Lawmaker seeks to avoid division over Defense bill

As the bitter debate on Iraq continues to rage across Capitol Hill, efforts to draft House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton's first defense authorization bill this week could get mired in partisan battles over the increasingly unpopular war, as well as deep cuts in missile defense and the Army's ambitious modernization program.

Committee members, many of whom have military bases in their districts, are keenly aware that sacrificing the bill to make a statement on the war would be a big gamble. If President Bush vetoes their bill because of provisions addressing future U.S. troop strength in Iraq, they know they will have lost their best chance to put their stamp on defense policy and spending priorities.

"We very much recognize that if our bill doesn't become law, that we will have accomplished nothing," said House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

The full committee markup of the massive fiscal 2008 authorization bill, scheduled for Wednesday, almost always triggers arguments over Pentagon policy and funding levels, but the finished product typically wins near-unanimous approval from the 60-plus members.

Skelton, D-Mo., said in an interview he does not intend to divide the committee over language on Iraq, an indication that he will do what he can to avoid making his bill the kind of political football that the recently vetoed fiscal 2007 supplemental spending bill has become.

"We've [had] a very bipartisan committee through the years, and I intend that to stay bipartisan," Skelton said.

Taylor, an influential committee leader who has opposed Democratic efforts to mandate a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, said he would have to review any language on Iraq before he could support the bill.

Several congressional aides said the Iraq language had not been finalized by the end of last week. Skelton said members and staff would work through the weekend on any Iraq provisions.

An internal e-mail from the committee to House aides on Friday indicated that they will distribute the chairman's full mark -- which presumably would include Iraq language -- sometime Monday.

But Skelton emphasized he did not want the bill to be regarded merely as a means to address U.S. military policy in Iraq. Its most important purpose, he said, is to take care of troops and their families and address a brewing crisis within the nation's ground forces.

"The Army is stretched and strained like it has never been before in recent history," Skelton said. "It's my intent to change that. And I think we're making a ... substantial step toward that."

Members on both sides of the aisle have applauded the committee's work to right the struggling Army. But both Republicans and Democrats have raised concerns about a provision that would cut a hefty $867 million from the Army's Future Combat Systems. In previous years under Republican-led Congresses, lawmakers generally only trimmed the budget for FCS, the centerpiece of the Army's transformation efforts.

Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, has said the cut his panel approved last week was part of a broader effort to give greater priority to immediate combat needs over long-term programs.

But the decision drew immediate fire from several members, who raised concerns that slicing roughly one-quarter of the FCS budget next year would devastate the program. It also mobilized both the Army and the Boeing-led FCS industry team to action.

At least four senior Army officers met with Abercrombie last Thursday in an effort to restore at least some of the funding. The Army also plans to open an FCS "mobile demonstration trailer and technologies display" to the media on Tuesday, just a day before the committee markup.

Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ranking member Jim Saxton, R-N.J., has said he hopes to resolve the funding issue before the markup. But several aides left open the possibility of offering amendments at Wednesday's meeting.

Meanwhile, large funding cuts to missile defense programs could spark a partisan fight during the markup, with several Republicans seeking to overturn the Strategic Forces Subcommittee's decision last week to slice $764 million from the program. Among the cuts was funding for construction of a launch site in Poland for 10 missile interceptors, a project the Bush administration has been working hard to persuade Russia and NATO allies to accept.

Also Wednesday, Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., plans to introduce an amendment that would prevent the Air Force from "prematurely retiring" any C-5A Galaxy cargo planes. Gingrey had not yet finalized the language, but his spokeswoman said he was concerned the Air Force had not provided a sufficient cost analysis of the savings generated from retiring the older C-5s.

The Lockheed Martin plane is undergoing extensive work at the company's Marietta, Ga., facility, which is in Gingrey's district.

The Air and Land Forces Subcommittee last week approved the gradual retirement of some older C-5 planes beginning in fiscal 2009. The Air Force has said it would like to retire 30 C-5s, and use that money to buy Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes, one of Capitol Hill's most favored defense procurement programs.