thedrifter
01-17-07, 10:39 AM
Surge of ground troops could hurt Air Force
By Bryant Jordan - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 17, 2007 10:19:48 EST
It’s possible that the cost of increasing the numbers of soldiers and Marines by up to 20,000 over the next several months could end up costing the Air Force, according to some defense analysts.
Loren Thompson, an aviation and defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Virginia, said the Air Force should have no problem moving however many additional troops to Iraq as part of President Bush’s surge of forces there, but it could end up paying for it in other ways.
“The real question for the Air Force is not whether they have the resources to support the surge, but whether the administration will try to shift money between accounts in order to cover the higher costs,” he said.
In other words, the Pentagon could end up rethinking how to use defense dollars it already allocated, perhaps taking some money away from the Air Force because of the increased ground force in Iraq.
Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense industry consulting group, noted the same concern.
The Air Force’s equipment recapitalization issues, he wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times, “aren’t as immediate as the Army and [Marine Corps’], but the bill will come due one day, particularly with transport aircraft.”
And each extra hour flown, Aboulafia said, “grows the recap bill that’s going to come due some day.
“The Air Force hasn’t benefited from procurement supplemental funding as the Army has. And there’s a real concern that if those supplementals go away and are replaced by direct budget funds only, the Army could gain at the Air Force’s expense.”
Ellie
By Bryant Jordan - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 17, 2007 10:19:48 EST
It’s possible that the cost of increasing the numbers of soldiers and Marines by up to 20,000 over the next several months could end up costing the Air Force, according to some defense analysts.
Loren Thompson, an aviation and defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Virginia, said the Air Force should have no problem moving however many additional troops to Iraq as part of President Bush’s surge of forces there, but it could end up paying for it in other ways.
“The real question for the Air Force is not whether they have the resources to support the surge, but whether the administration will try to shift money between accounts in order to cover the higher costs,” he said.
In other words, the Pentagon could end up rethinking how to use defense dollars it already allocated, perhaps taking some money away from the Air Force because of the increased ground force in Iraq.
Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense industry consulting group, noted the same concern.
The Air Force’s equipment recapitalization issues, he wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times, “aren’t as immediate as the Army and [Marine Corps’], but the bill will come due one day, particularly with transport aircraft.”
And each extra hour flown, Aboulafia said, “grows the recap bill that’s going to come due some day.
“The Air Force hasn’t benefited from procurement supplemental funding as the Army has. And there’s a real concern that if those supplementals go away and are replaced by direct budget funds only, the Army could gain at the Air Force’s expense.”
Ellie