By Emelie Rutherford
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told House lawmakers yesterday the Pentagon will likely buy more than 3,000 additional mine-resistant trucks for the additional troops being sent to Afghanistan.
The multi-billion-dollar cost of those extra Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs), Gates said, factors into his estimate that the Pentagon will need up to $35 billion before next October for the additional 30,000 troops destined for the war-torn nation.
The Pentagon’s official requirement for M-ATVs, made by Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp. [OSK], currently is 6,644.
“With the additional forces that are going to be sent in, we are probably going to recommend increasing that number (of M-ATVs), to protect those troops, to about 10,000,” Gates told the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) yesterday. “So that’s several billion dollars in and of itself just for force protection” with the M-ATVs.
During the second day of congressional hearings on President Barack Obama’s new Afghan war plan, Gates was quizzed yesterday by HASC Vice Chairman Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) on his estimate that the Pentagon will need $30 billion to $35 billion in additional supplemental funds this fiscal year for the 30,000 additional troops.
Spratt, also the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said $30 billion-plus estimate seemed high. Additional monies for the newly announced influx of troops into Afghanistan come on top of the $130 billion in war funding the Obama administration requested from Congress for fiscal year 2010, which ends Sept. 30.
Gates noted Wednesday that if the Pentagon ends up spending $165 billion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in FY ’10, that amount is still less than the $185 billion appropriated for the two conflicts in FY ’08.
The defense secretary, who also served under former President George W. Bush, told Spratt Pentagon officials will relay more-specific war-funding needs to Congress.
“We can now refine the numbers and get those to you,” Gates said. “The $30 [billion]-to-$35 billion was basically a ballpark figure and we now need to get down and get the details.”
House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) pegged the cost of the additional war funding, which will likely be appropriated in an emergency supplemental spending bill, at roughly $40 billion in comments to reporters Wednesday (Defense Daily, Dec. 3).
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday she does not support legislation to raise taxes to pay for the war in Afghanistan. Proposed by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), Murtha, and other senior House Democrats, the bill calls for a creating surtax ranging from 1 percent to 5 percent that would increase according to taxpayers’ incomes and fully pay the previous year’s war costs. The legislation, which Murtha acknowledged will likely not pass, is intended to stop the practice of borrowing to fund the ongoing war.
“I’m not in support of the proposal of Mr. Obey,” Pelosi told reporters yesterday at a Capitol press conference.
“When the president makes a request (regarding war funding), we’ll make a judgment about what support it has and some of that will relate to how it affects the deficit,” she said.
“The Bush administration has run up trillions of dollars in war costs, not many people ever ask how it’s going to be paid for on the Republican side. We want to be responsible about reducing the deficit and so we’ll see all of the priorities that we have in perspective and with bringing our budget deficit under control.”