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Analysis: Debating Defense

Council on Foreign Relations

January 5, 2007
Prepared by: Michael Moran

The last thing any institution wants to do just before making its yearly pitch for more resources is to come begging for a huge special allotment to cover the current budget year. Yet that’s precisely what the Department of Defense plans to do. According to this draft DOD supplemental budget request, the Pentagon will start its relationship with the new Democratic-led Congress by requesting $99.7 billion to cover operations, maintenance, and a host of other costs less obviously related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of those wars, meanwhile, at well over $300 billion and counting, continues to make pre-war estimators blush.

This latest “supplemental request” has tongues wagging in Washington not only because of its size. It also defies an effort by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to force more of these costs to go through normal budget channels—a move which would subject them to more congressional hearings. President Bush made clear he had no intention of abiding by McCain’s wishes and took advantage of a loophole to sidestep it. This new CFR Backgrounder looks at the controversy over “emergency supplementals” and how the Democratic takeover of Congress may affect the military’s longer-term modernization plans.

Close reading of the draft supplemental request—still to be submitted to Congress—indicates the vast majority of the funds would pay for maintenance, upgrades, and replacements for the equipment fighting these wars. Yet there’s plenty to raise oversight eyebrows, including a $3.9 billion request for several Air Force F-35 fighters, years away from active duty, plus funding for “pure research,” and billions of dollars for Navy operations which may not cry “desert counterinsurgency” to lawmakers.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.