Army says it needs up to $260 billion per year

The battle over how the Defense Department's budget will be divided among the military services heated up this week, with the latest salvo fired by the Army.

In order to maintain its forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, increase its size, train and equip soldiers, repair war-worn equipment and modernize its battle fleet, the service requires funding of $250 billion to $260 billion a year, said Army Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes.

That amount equals half the $515 billion requested by the Pentagon for 2009. The Army requested $140 billion in the 2009 defense budget. It also expects to receive additional funds from emergency wartime supplemental spending measures. President Bush requested $189 billion in supplemental funding for 2008, of which Congress appropriated $86.8 billion last year.

Speaking at an event Thursday sponsored by the Association of the United States Army, Speakes said the service gets half its funding from the base budget and half from the supplementals. "Our ability to grow, sustain and improve the quality of the force," he said, is largely tied up in supplemental funding.

Speakes said Army leaders realize that the emergency supplementals won't last forever, so they're trying to shift much of the funding into the base budget. He suggested next year the service will request a significantly larger base budget than this year's.

"Everybody wants their program nested comfortably in the base and not out in the supplementals," Speakes said. But the Army must determine which of its "enduring requirements" belong there, he said. "We're working now this spring on a strategy that makes sense for today and the future and will be able to survive scrutiny" from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the White House and Congress.

While a reduction in demand for troops in Iraq would reduce the need for funds devoted to operations, Speakes said the Army is "out of balance" and that fixing the problem will require more money.

In addition to the high personnel costs associated with relying on an all-volunteer force in a time of war, he said the Army must increase its training for soldiers beyond the counterinsurgency instruction they receive prior to deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The Army must develop a "new, more sophisticated training environment," that more accurately captures the types of conflicts the service expects to face in the future, he said. "Will we ever go back to the way the [National Training Center] was in 2000, devoid of human beings and cities? Of course not. [Our doctrine] says we'll be fighting among the people."