Panel earmarks $80 million for high-tech battlefield gear

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to spend $80 million next year to resurrect a high-tech Army program that would give soldiers deployed to Iraq improved access to information on the battlefield.

Labeled as a "whole committee" add-on to the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the money would reverse the Army's decision earlier this year to kill the Land Warrior soldier system to pay for more pressing budget needs.

The Army's decision to cancel Land Warrior came just as it was sending the first sets of advanced combat helmets, modified rifles, digital imagery and other equipment to a battalion heading to Iraq -- marking the first deployment of the soldier ensemble after 10 years and $2 billion spent on development.

For the Senate committee, the Army's reasoning for ending Land Warrior was not good enough. "We shouldn't let a budget decision influence our ability to do our best to protect our soldiers," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va., former Armed Services Committee chairman.

In its report accompanying the authorization bill, the committee said terminating the program "may be short-sighted," particularly as infantry troops are expected to be central to the Army's missions over the next several decades.

The committee directed much of the $80 million it added to the bill to pay for outfitting two battalions now deployed to Iraq with the gear, augmenting the one battalion already using the equipment in theater. But the add-on also earmarks about $30 million for continued development and improvement of the program.

Despite the recent deployment, Army officials do not have any plans to buy more Land Warrior kits, instead preferring to focus their efforts on developing a next-generation soldier system. But lawmakers worried primarily about meeting the needs of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan insist that the focus should be on the present -- not the future.

Land Warrior "seemed to be a program that was potentially going to make a difference for the soldier, transforming the way the soldiers do their job, at least the leaders at the small unit level," said a Senate aide familiar with the program.

Indeed, the benefits of the Land Warrior program already are being seen in Iraq, where leaders of the 4th Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment are using the gear during daily operations. The battalion is part of the Stryker brigade that deployed to Iraq in the spring.

The system has "performed above my expectations over here," Lt. Col. Brian Cummings, Land Warrior product manager, said in a telephone interview Wednesday from northern Iraq. In short, the ensemble has given small units better communications and situational awareness devices while they are on the move -- a crucial leg up in an urban battle against an often unidentifiable enemy.

Program officials acknowledge Land Warrior is not perfect. They hope to one day field a system that weighs less than the ensemble's current 15 pounds.

The program office at Fort Belvoir, Va., hopes to update the Land Warrior system continuously, eventually turning the program into the Army's next-generation soldier system, which now is a separate program. Doing so would allow the Army to bypass many steps in the Defense Department's bureaucratic acquisition process and get new equipment to the field faster.

"Let's not start over," said Col. Richard Hansen, Land Warrior project manager. "Let's build on our successes with Land Warrior."

To do that, Land Warrior program officials and prime contractor General Dynamics are hoping to leverage the Senate support and their positive field reports to keep the program alive indefinitely. While the Army has terminated Land Warrior, Hansen said he will work within the service to try to gain support from senior leaders for the program.

"My approach is to try to offer this information [from the field] to my leaders and say maybe it's worth reconsidering," he said.

The Senate bill is "the first step in a long process," said a General Dynamics spokesman, acknowledging that the House-passed defense authorization measure did not include similar language and House and Senate appropriators have yet to mark up their Defense spending bills.