- WASHINGTON (UPI) - The war in Afghanistan is costing about $1.8 billion
a month, according to senior defense officials, and the Pentagon wants
to set aside $10 billion to cover the bill for the global war on terrorism
in 2003.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also will ask Congress for a supplement
to this year's budget to pay for the war in Afghanistan, an official said.
He declined to specify how much the Pentagon would seek.
"We're running out faster than we ever thought we'd be running out,"
he said.
The war began Oct. 7 and activity increased sharply in December, with the
taking of hundreds of prisoners and the deployment of the Army to Kandahar
to relieve some 3,000 Marines camped there.
As the budget currently is written, the Pentagon will pay around $20 billion
in 2003 for terrorism-related costs -- the $10 billion contingency fund,
plus $9.4 billion for added force protection, new technologies and other
items demanded by the war, senior defense officials said.
"This is the best estimate of war-related costs," a senior defense
official said Friday when the Pentagon unveiled its $379 billion budget
request in a private briefing. "If the war ended today, we would still
need $9.4 billion."
The defense budget request is the largest since the height of the build
up under President Reagan in 1985 and represents a $48 billion increase
over the amount requested for 2002. The budget is anticipated to grow to
$451 billion by 2007, according to Pentagon budget documents.
The budget request is $30 billion more than was expected for the year --
and a larger boost in one year than candidate George W. Bush promised to
increase over a decade. It comes during a recession and when the nation
is running its first deficit in four years. But the Pentagon insists that
after all the accounting is stripped away, it represents $9 billion in
additional spending that was not already planned.
The numbers are complicated. According to the Pentagon, $6.7 billion of
the $48 billion increase is attributable to inflation. More than $11 billion
is associated with military and civilian health care and retirement increases
already written into law.
Another $10 billion is set aside for future war operations. Almost $4 billion
is put into the budget simply to hedge for programs the Pentagon has already
begun but not put aside enough money for because of unrealistic estimations
of costs. The administration had planned to boost spending by $13 billion
and made just more than $9 billion in cuts to last year's spending plan.
The "new" money, therefore, is the $9.8 billion already earmarked
for the current war.
The budget has something for nearly everyone, including a boost for satellite-guided
bombs and special operations weapons that were instrumental in the swift
routing of the Taliban from Afghanistan.
The Navy and the Air Force will spend $830 million on 35,000 Joint Direct
Attack Munition bombs, the weapon of choice in the Afghan conflict for
its relatively low cost, high accuracy rate, and long-range.
The bomb is manufactured by Boeing and actually is a wing kit and navigation
system that attaches to conventional, so-called dumb bombs, giving them
the ability to hit targets using the Global Positioning System -- rather
than just falling toward their target as they were originally designed
to do.
The Navy will buy 106 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles for $145 million,
three times the number bought in 2002. Tomahawks are highly accurate and
stealthy, following close to the terrain as they make their way to their
target.
A volley of nearly 75 Tomahawks were used against Osama bin Laden's training
camp Zawar Kili in 1998. The camp largely was empty when the bombs arrived.
It was about this weapon that Bush spoke last year when he said he would
not send $1 million missiles into Afghanistan to bomb a $10 tent "and
hit a camel in the butt."
The budget, however, does not provide more money for the shipbuilding industry,
which hoped to see an increase in the number of vessels produced.
The Pentagon plans to actually buy fewer ships than this year, putting
the Navy on track to dip below a 300-ship force unless the trend is quickly
reversed.
The Navy will build four ships in 2003: two DDG-51 Aegis Destroyers, a
Virginia class attack submarine, a single $1.1 billon LPD-17 amphibious
transport ship -- one fewer than expected -- and a Lewis and Clark class
cargo ship.
The Pentagon canceled the new DD-21 destroyer program last year, replacing
it with a single-ship technology demonstrator known as the DDX.
One big winner in the 2003 budget is unmanned aerial vehicles, generally
used for surveillance in areas too dangerous to risk a pilot, or require
pilots to be in the air for too long. After a troubled but promising showing
in Afghanistan, UAVs will get around $1 billion in the 2003 request, a
$300 million increase over the 2002 budget.
The Air Force is increasing production of the Predator medium-altitude
UAV to two a month; it bought about 60 but has lost nearly 25, many of
them to Iraqi enemy fire but others to malfunctions that led to crashes.
It will spend $154 million buying 22 Predator air vehicles in 2003.
An unspecified sum will go toward mounting Hellfire anti-armor missiles
on the pilotless drones, an innovation borrowed from the CIA in Afghanistan.
The Predator is built by General Atomics.
The Air Force also will buy three of the experimental high-altitude Global
Hawk UAVs, built by Northrop Grumman, for $171 million. The sole Global
Hawk sent to Afghanistan crashed last month.
Missile defense, the administration's top priority until the terrorist
attacks on Sept. 11, is in line to receive $7.7 billion -- spending that
includes the program formerly known as national missile defense, shorter-range
intercept systems like THAAD, Patriot and MEADS, and futuristic laser boost-phase
intercept programs.
The NMD portion of the account, now known as Ground-based Midcourse, is
getting $1.06 billion in the budget request, more than $200 million above
the 2002 budget, in part due to its third successful deep-space intercept
test late last year.
The Air Force will continue to buy C-17s as it moves toward a fleet of
180 of the massive, long-range cargo planes. It will buy 12 in 2003 for
nearly $4 billion from Boeing. That is more money for 12 in 2003 than the
Pentagon spent on 15 in 2002, an accounting curiosity the Pentagon attributes
to the fact the aircraft are bought under a multi-year contract, with an
amount set in advance for each year. The stable funding allows Boeing to
plan for efficient production.
The Air Force will also buy 23 F-22 Raptor air-to-air fighters for $4.6
billion, a windfall for Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor on the aircraft.
It is meant to replace the F-15.
The Air Force and the Navy will pony up a total of $3.5 billion for the
continued development of the Joint Strike Fighter, a replacement for the
F-16, which will begin to retire in large numbers around 2005.
The Air Force also is starting research and design work on a new Space-Based
Radar satellite to complement the infrared and imagery satellites already
in orbit, with $91 million dedicated in the 2003 budget. It will be launched
in 2010 and will begin operations in 2013.
The Navy will buy 44 "Super Hornet" F/A-18E/F for $3.2 billion
and 15 MH-60 cargo and personnel carrier helicopters.
The Marine Corps will buy 11 controversial V-22s for $1.5 billion. It will
spend an additional $500 million in development as it tries to correct
the problems that brought down two of the aircraft in the year 2000, fatal
accidents that killed 23.
The Army failed to get its active force manpower increase approved and
will remain at 480,000 soldiers. It sought money to pay for an additional
40,000 to 50,000 personnel, people it says it needs not just to expand
its missions but to cover positions that are already empty.
The Army is buying 332 Interim Armored Vehicles, a new class of vehicles
intended to make it lighter, more independent and faster to deploy than
it is in traditional tanks and armor. Together with research money, the
Army will spend $936 million on the wheeled vehicles.
The Army is buying 12 Black Hawk utility helicopters for $180 million and
is spending just over $900 million on the continued development of the
Comanche helicopter, an armed reconnaissance aircraft.
It is also buying 74 Longbow radar kits for upgraded Apache helicopters
for $895 million, giving the attack aircraft the ability to shoot the Hellfire
anti-tank missile in a "fire and forget" mode -- allowing the
missile to find its own way to the target and letting the Apache engage
other targets or leave the area.
Despite a public commitment to improving the military's crumbling buildings
and facilities around the globe, the Pentagon took money out of military
construction. Instead it will spend its money sustaining the worst of the
worst buildings, in the hopes that Congress will approve a round of base
closures prior to 2005.
The Pentagon wanted a round of "BRAC" in 2003 but was rebuffed
by the defense committees on Capitol Hill. Base closings are politically
unpopular and cause a great deal of tumult in local communities that in
some cases depend almost completely on a military base to sustain their
local economy.
The Pentagon maintains there are 25 percent too many bases in the United
States and wants swift authority to close them. Which bases are on the
target list is a well-guarded secret as officially all bases are fair game
until a civilian commission assesses them and makes it recommendations
to the president.
In the meantime, law requires the Defense Department to treat all bases
and facilities equally when it comes to improvements and repairs. Rather
than spend money at bases it wants to close, the Pentagon will do only
the minimum that is required to all bases to make them livable.
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