Study Urges DoD To Add Funding, Helicopters For Marines

[thedrifter]

Study Urges DoD To Add Funding, Helicopters For Marines
Wednesday August 23rd, 2006 / 0h30


By Rebecca Christie Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)

- The Pentagon should give the Marine Corps a larger share of the U.S. defense budget so it can buy more helicopters, combat vehicles, and other equipment, a new study says.
The Center for American Progress and the Lexington Institute, two Washington think tanks backed by opposite ends of the political spectrum, say the Marines are bearing the brunt of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study urges Congress to give the Marines more money to replace damaged equipment and prepare to meet future military demands.
"Resetting and recovering the force will be expensive," said the new study, due for formal release Wednesday. An advance copy was provided to Dow Jones on Tuesday.
The study was written by Lawrence Korb and Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress, a group that bills itself as supporting "progressive" causes. The report's other author was Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, which describes itself as seeking "market-based solutions to public policy challenges."
The study estimated a $12 billion bill to restore Marine Corps equipment to pre-Iraq levels, based on operations so far. Each additional year of Iraq occupation will add $5 billion to that figure, the study said.
The study said the Marines may need more H-60 Sea Hawk helicopters, made by United Technologies Corp.'s (UTX) Sikorsky Aircraft unit. It also urged the Marines to consider buying H-92 helicopters, a newer Sikorsky model that has not yet received a big U.S. military order.
Those helicopters would prop up Marine Corps aviation until newer aircraft become available, the study said. In the long run, the Marines plan to make a big investment in the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor, made by Boeing Co. (BA) and Textron Inc.'s (TXT) Bell Helicopter unit.
"This will also enable the Marines to hedge against the possibility that purchasing all of the planned 360 Ospreys will become unaffordable," the study said.
On the ground side, the study said the Marines should cut their expected purchases of Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles, a new General Dynamics Corp. (GD) combat vehicle, from 1,000 to about 600 or 700. Instead, the study recommended that the Marines consider buying Stryker vehicles, which General Dynamics designed for the Army, along with other armored personnel carriers.
"It is not clear the service can fill all of its future needs with the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle given the system's high cost," the study said.
Congress ought to fill the Marines' request for $6.8 billion in 2007 funding for resetting forces, the study said. Each additional year in Iraq will require another $5.3 billion in reset money, and the service also deserves full funding for its $2.5 billion list of unfunded requirements, the study said.
Overall, the Marines just plain need more money, the report said. The service has an annual baseline budget of around $18 billion, compared to $110 billion for the Army and $129 billion for the entire Navy.
"Unless the defense topline budget is changed, the Marines should receive an increase in their share of the Navy budget from 14% to 17% and their overall share of the defense budget should increase from 4% to 5%," the study said.
- By Rebecca Christie; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9243; rebecca.christie@dowjones.com


Wednesday August 23rd, 2006

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines badly in need of funding, report says

War increases workload at Barstow repair center
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 23, 2006

The Marine Corps, America's 911 force, needs emergency help of its own, according to a report released today by two prominent think tanks.

Largely echoing what Marine commanders have told Congress in recent weeks, the study says the Corps needs $12 billion to bring its ground, communications and aircraft equipment back up to their levels before the Iraq war.

The service must also spend $5 billion for equipment repairs each year it maintains a major presence in Iraq, said military experts from the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., and the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. Before the war started, Marine officials spent about $3 billion annually on refurbishing equipment that was 20 years old in many cases.

The Corps' wartime equipment challenges have significantly boosted the workload for a key maintenance and repair center in Barstow, possibly put troops at greater risk for death or injury in combat zones and strained the operating budgets for bases such as Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, where everything from child care services to library hours were temporarily reduced this year.

“You are going to see the Marine Corps increasingly not ready for duty unless it gets funded,” said Max A. Bergmann, an author of the 25-page report titled “Marine Corps Equipment After Iraq.”

“(The Marines) will still be able to go to the Korean peninsula or respond to a tsunami, but they'll be limited once they get there,” he added. “I think the 911 force definitely needs 911 assistance. They are hurting.”

Equipment shortages could have consequences far beyond the battlefield, Bergmann said.

“The military is a voluntary force. If services aren't being provided, it hurts morale, and if you hurt morale, you hurt re-enlistment rates at a time when you need to expand the military,” he said.

Congress recently held hearings to discuss equipment needs for the Army and Marine Corps, but it hasn't met senior officers' requests for more money. Leaders of the two branches also don't expect to secure the additional funds in the 2007 defense appropriations bill, which awaits Senate action after approval in the House.

Army commanders said they need at least $17 billion next year to begin “resetting,” the military's buzzword for repairing and replacing equipment.

They and their Marine counterparts have forecast trouble if military hardware chewed up in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't replenished quickly enough.

“If we get involved in another major operation anytime soon, we could have a severe problem,” said Marine Brig. Gen. Raymond C. Fox, assistant deputy commandant for programs and resources.

The financial shortages have many noncombat repercussions as well, said Maj. Gen. Mike Lehnert, who oversees seven Marine installations in the western United States, including Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Until he received an emergency cash infusion of $32 million from the Pentagon this spring, Lehnert said, he had to cut hours for child care, libraries and social clubs at his bases. He has not restored a $2.64 million job-training budget for the installations.

The funding outlook is no better now, Lehnert said.

“I am funding must-pays instead of should-pays,” he said. “I can't tell you when I am going to hit the wall. If a roof isn't falling in on someone's head, I can't fix it. Next year, I'm going to start $35 million in the hole.”

Nationwide, the Marine Corps and Army have said the ballooning equipment costs are so bad that they have clamped down on spending for travel, civilian hiring and upgrades for some on-base housing.

“The Marine Corps is a war-fighting organization. It is going to invest in equipment that keeps the Marine Corps the 911 force,” Lehnert said. “It is a problem that the Marine Corps has more war than it has budget.”

And the equipment problem is likely to worsen in coming years, said Col. Arthus Sass, commander of the Barstow Maintenance Center, which is located about three hours northeast of Camp Pendleton.

The center is the largest tenant on the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow, one of two major repair facilities for the Corps. (The other is in Albany, Ga.)

War has sharply increased business at the Barstow installation. Since fiscal year 2003, the center has added nearly 400 employees – for a total of 1,126 people – and its total work hours have jumped from 861,000 to a projected 1.3 million for the current fiscal year.

Inside a 10-acre building on the base is “The Line,” where workers try to rebuild Marine vehicles, artillery pieces and other equipment as quickly as possible. They know that Iraq's heat and sandstorms are wearing out the Corps' Humvees and communications devices four to nine times faster than prewar conditions did.

A crane spans the two-football-field-long building, which reverberates with the sounds of hammer blows and air wrenches. Other structures house enormous X-ray and ultrasound machines that detect cracks in metal.

In the middle of “The Line” building hangs a banner that reads: “What you do is very important. Someday a Marine's life may depend on it.” The motto also appears on T-shirts and posters.

In a nearby yard, the employees are greeted with a more gripping reminder of war's toll. There sit three light-armored vehicles – or what is left of them. Their paint has been cooked off, their floors have buckled and their tires have shriveled to the rims.

The worst of the hulks still holds ash and the moldering smell of death.

On flat cars at the nearby railhead, dozens of erstwhile Canadian armored vehicles await cannibalization. Transmissions for the Corps' light-armored vehicles are in short supply, and the ones from north of the border are a good replacement.

Demand for the center's services will increase in coming years, Sass said, as hundreds if not thousands of broken, blown-up and washed-up pieces of equipment are brought from Iraq to the Barstow base.

“In three years, we'll begin to find out the true cost,” Sass said. “There is a whole big backlog that is still in (Iraq). We don't really know how much is there or how much it will cost to fix.”

Loren Thompson, who along with Bergmann and Lawrence J. Korb wrote the new report, expects equipment costs to hamstring Marine and Army combat readiness for years.

“To some degree, this will cause the services to probably cut their modernization programs,” Thompson said. “The bases will have to further defer maintenance and there will be a lack of funds for upkeep and improvements. The base commanders will have to do some fancy footwork.”


Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com

Ellie