Army needs more money

[Tickler]

Our military crisis
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-iraq_24edi.ART.State.Edition1.3e66b85.html


According to in-house assessments, fully two-thirds of the Army's operating force, both active and reserve, is now reporting in as "unready" – lacking the equipment, people or training they need to execute their assigned missions. Not a single one of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams – its core fighting units – currently in the United States is ready to deploy. The Army has no strategic reserve to speak of. The other key U.S. fighting force in Iraq, the Marine Corps, is also hurting, with much of its equipment badly in need of repair or replacement.


Top U.S. Army Officer Withholds Budget
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/roundups/article_1204617.php/News_Roundup


WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army`s chief of staff has refused to file a budget plan after telling the secretary of Defense that global commitments require billions to maintain.

U.S. Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker reportedly withheld the 2008 budget plan past the Aug. 15 deadline after the White House and Congress carried out a series of cuts to the service`s budget over the past four months, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Schoomaker had previously told U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that troop levels in Iraq could not be maintained without a reworking of the budget.

'There`s no sense in us submitting a budget that we can`t execute, a broken budget,' Schoomaker said in a recent Washington address.

Army officials involved with budget negotiations said Schoomaker has asked for $138.8 billion in 2008, which is nearly $25 billion more than limits set by Rumsfeld and a 41-percent increase over current budget levels.

'It`s incredibly huge,' said an Army official speaking on condition of anonymity. 'These are just incredible numbers.'

[Moby]

Money is the least of their worries. It sounds like Schoomaker is asking for less then 25% to be added to his budget. That's pretty normal in business and 10% to 15% is to be expected from the head of every budget leader. Besides, they just got an emergency spending increase of about $90 Billion.

Congress loves those emergency defence spending bills because they slap all the pork and pet prjects to them.

PNAC's initial statement claims that the USA needs to drastically increase defense spending, which has already happened but certainly not enough for the founding members.

My concern is that the military has run out of other needed resources like leadership, morals and people. Sooner or later they will need a draft to keep fighting the Iraq, Afgahnistan and soon to be Iran.

[Jesse Hemingway]

The AWOL president bush has said that some other president will need to deal with Iraq. This is one of the main beefs of the many I have with republicans; if their bitch boy bush said some other president will have to figure out the cesspool called Iraq. Then put the funding for the war into the budget stop using emergency funding and hiding the cost, in bitch boy bush’s own words it does not fall into an emergency. So all you bush moral high grounds I do not believe nick deep in a cesspool should be considered the moral high ground.:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Linkster]

The part thats being missed here is that the Army chief of staff has done this in protest saying that he will not put his name on a document that does not give him enough money to outfit his Army troops and be sucessful performing his job in Iraq
While you are correct that people always hold out for a little more money - the highest ranking member of the Army has disobeyed an order from the Secy of Defense by doing this - and this is just a little more than a simple budget discrepancy

This army General is also starting to criticize Rumsfeld for the lack of support - so this was not surprising

Note that the Senate starts hearing this afternoon as well, with the ex-generals who led the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan who have criticized the administration on their handling of the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

[stefan segal]

Not unheard of in the rest of the world, the US has the makings for a military coup seem to be brewing...I've thought about this, and haven't stopped vascillating pro and con...as much as I'd like to see the collateral damage of a military rat-hunt through the hallowed halls of government.

The most problematic to me is that I can visualize a condition worse than the one bush orchestrates...namely, a take-over by this shadow government staged to look like sponaneous and rightreous changing of heads of state...and then we wind up sweeping floors in a Carlyle weapons plant making leg-irons for our neighbors.

I tend to put my faith more in a humungus grass roots movement...then you can add the collateral damage to all those repugs, and go with god.

Anyone head of anything...librarians even...would first declare martial law...then it's S.O.L. times for the rest of us.

Establishment types relate to control, whereas grassroots respond to democracy...as distinguished from autocracy of hierarchial types.

Stefan

[williamsmith]

The part thats being missed here is that the Army chief of staff has done this in protest saying that he will not put his name on a document that does not give him enough money to outfit his Army troops and be sucessful performing his job in Iraq
While you are correct that people always hold out for a little more money - the highest ranking member of the Army has disobeyed an order from the Secy of Defense by doing this - and this is just a little more than a simple budget discrepancy

[Bill Cosby]

Welcome aboard william.............


My concern is that the military has run out of other needed resources like leadership, morals and people. Sooner or later they will need a draft to keep fighting the Iraq, Afgahnistan and soon to be Iran.

Great call.......... LMAO

[foxbaron]

Money is the least of their worries. It sounds like Schoomaker is asking for less then 25% to be added to his budget. That's pretty normal in business and 10% to 15% is to be expected from the head of every budget leader. Besides, they just got an emergency spending increase of about $90 Billion.

Congress loves those emergency defence spending bills because they slap all the pork and pet prjects to them.

PNAC's initial statement claims that the USA needs to drastically increase defense spending, which has already happened but certainly not enough for the founding members.

My concern is that the military has run out of other needed resources like leadership, morals and people. Sooner or later they will need a draft to keep fighting the Iraq, Afgahnistan and soon to be Iran.


Which is one more reason we need to have mandatory military service for all males 18 and over. It's high time all shared in the responsibilities.

[Bill Cosby]

Why not social service like the peace corp etc & not just killing ppl......