Backtalk: United front

United front
By George C. Wilson

Adm. Michael Mullen, the relatively new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has three big objectives as he starts this year’s wrestling match with Congress. His first objective is for the chiefs to take a united stand on any major changes lawmakers demand in President Bush’s military budget for fiscal 2009.

Mullen told me he has a commitment from the chiefs to take this unified approach to budget issues rather than have each service lobby its case directly with lawmakers to save this or that program.

In this presidential election year, Congress almost certainly will redistribute Bush’s defense dollars, either out of conviction or to make political points. Cuts in such expensive programs as the Air Force’s F-22 fighter plane — now priced by the Pentagon at $355 million per copy, including research and development costs — probably will be attempted. And the ailing national economy is bound to resuscitate the guns-vs.-butter argument, which until now has been eclipsed by the Iraq war. Political pressures will thus test the unity of the chiefs that Mullen has forged.

Besides fighting the battle of the budget, Mullen will be under the gun as the Pentagon tries to obey congressional orders, inserted in the fiscal 2008 Defense Authorization Act, to take a new and extensive look at the division of labor among the services to see whether it still makes sense given the changed threats.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, championed these marching orders, which require a reappraisal of the roles and missions of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps every four years.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/community/opinion/navy_backtalk_budget_080218/



uhc comment: Wow. $355,000,000 a pop.