Army: war duties should warrant a bigger budget.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: DEFENSE WATCH

The Pentagon's annual budget ritual is just about complete, and despite rampant rumors about draconian cuts and program cancellations, it appears that next year's spending plan will reflect the status quo.

That is bad news for the Army, which has been making a case for the past several years that the green machine deserves a larger share of the total budget that generally has been divvied up in approximately equal shares among the services.

After nearly three years of fighting a draining, frustrating war in Iraq, many in the Army believe it deserves a bigger piece of the pie.

Although the Army received $160 billion in emergency war supplemental appropriations in 2005, its actual "base" budget is about $100 billion, compared to $126 billion for the Navy/Marine Corps and $127 billion for the Air Force.

That allocation of resources strikes some as unfair.

"We need to improve our position in the base budget," said Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Yakovac Jr., military deputy for Army acquisition.

The Army in 2006 will request $147 billion in supplemental funds. Without the additional war appropriations, the "Army is going to have problems," he told defense contractors at a conference in Dearborn, Mich.

To illustrate his point, Yakovac showed a list of the Defense Department's "top 20" research, development and acquisition programs. Of those 20 programs, only three are for new Army hardware (Future Combat Systems, Stryker light armored vehicles and the Meads missile-defense system), and two are for upgrades to the Chinook and Apache helicopters.

These numbers highlight the unfair distribution of resources in the Defense Department, Yakovac said. "If we are the heavy lifters, why don't we have some more things that are really long term on that chart? I don't know the answer."

The answer may or may not be found in the Quadrennial Defense Review, which the Pentagon is scheduled to complete in February. The much-ballyhooed QDR, according to insiders, is not expected to upset the current state of affairs, although it may end up redefining the jobs and responsibilities of each of the services.

For the Army, this means possibly having to do more with the existing resources, Yakovac noted. The QDR, he said, could end up requiring the Army to expand its role in homeland security and disaster relief, and to ensure the Guard and Reserves are adequately equipped. "None of this comes free ... Maybe they should allocate more money so we can provide for disaster relief."

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