Hurricanes Delay Passage of Spending for Troops in Iraq

By Diane M. Grassi

It has now become clear that the devastation done in the U.S. Gulf region by Hurricane Katrina, the subsequent flooding in New Orleans and the additional damage by Hurricane Rita has delayed priority legislation on Capitol Hill. The Defense Authorization Bills and the Defense Appropriation Bills in both the Senate and the House of Representatives were temporarily tabled prior to the summer break taken by Congress. But the Congress was not counting on any natural disasters to impinge upon its schedule, which is short on time normally, in order to get spending bills and budgets ratified before the new fiscal year which began October 1, 2005.

In an effort to expedite the two defense bills pending in the Senate, which includes 200 pending amendments in the Defense Authorization Bill, Senators John Warner (R-VA), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and ranking committee Democrat, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), have taken the unconventional step of attaching the Defense Authorization Bill to the Defense Appropriations Bill by way of the Warner-Levin Amendment. Whether the House will follow suit with their bills is largely in question.

“Time is short. We must be reasonable in the time we spend debating. It is too important to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines for the Senate not to complete action on this bill,” according to Warner. By combining the two bills, it is feared that the Armed Services Committee would become less relevant, and would erode the power of certain lawmakers. However, the appropriations for defense are crucial to defense contractors in supplying weapons programs.

Although increasing military pay and benefits is part of the authorization bill, the Warner-Levin Amendment will provide for it. And part of the thinking of the amendment is to limit time spent on debate on the remaining amendments which the Senate must still address, with the hope of completing such legislation by sometime around October 7, 2005. The double bill would exceed 650 pages and Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee is not thrilled with the merging of the two bills but said, “There are many items funded in the appropriations that require authorization before money could be spent.” He is willing to go along with it, however, "if it proves to be the only way to get the measures passed.”

One of the amendments added to the Defense Appropriations Bill has just been introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), re-requiring the Pentagon to reimburse families up to $1,100.00 for provided body armor and other protective gear and health and safety equipment for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan which they purchased from 9/11/01 to 7/31/04. In legislation passed in October of 2004, the Pentagon was to have instituted a reimbursement plan for such families, but never complied. Dodd plans to “take the issue out of the hands of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and give control to the military unit commanders in the field” in deciding which equipment is eligible for reimbursement. Additionally, the amendment would extend the cut-off date indefinitely as troops are still dealing with equipment shortages in 2005.

Under the law passed in October 2004, Congress had until February 25, 2005 to develop a way to implement the Pentagon reimbursement plan, but did not require the military to reimburse expenses for equipment purchased by families not normally supplied by the military. Dodd’s new law hopes to circumvent the lack of teeth in last year’s legislation with his new amendment. Dodd “wonders whether the Pentagon intends to actually reimburse anyone.”

At the heart of the defense bills still needing ratification in Congress, is the remaining need for proper body armor and vehicle armor for troops in combat almost a year since December 2004, when Secretary Rumsfeld was questioned over such shortages. There was both public outcry and scrutiny over such, for which funding and production problems linger. In May 2005, the Marine Corps recalled 5,277 combat vests issued to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because of concern that they might fail bullet penetration tests. And in August 2005, the Pentagon for the second time since the War in Iraq began decided to replace body armor for all U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new armor would be an upgrade in the protection used by soldiers as well as civilian employees and news reporters.

Unfortunately, the replacement processes were met by more delays than anticipated, primarily because the manufacturing of bullet-resistant ceramic plates to fortify the vests was stalled. Major General William D. Catto, head of the Marine Corps Systems Command, said that he “wasn’t happy about the year-long delay to replace the armor” and blamed the delay “partly on a shortage of the raw material that is needed to strengthen the plates.”

The lack of a strong military industrial manufacturing base has come up many times previously in Congressional hearings this year concerning the manufacture of ammunition and armor for Humvee vehicles. The Pentagon hopes to continue rolling out 25,000 vests a month until all 500,000 military troops are supplied. But it still leaves immediate needs with a shortfall as not all troops will be supplied until the spring of 2006.

And the Pentagon last week changed courses on its plan to borrow from procurement funds earmarked specifically for buying better armored vehicles for troops in Iraq. Over $300 million was to be transferred to meet year-end operating costs for the Army when fiscal year 2005 ended September 30th. Due to the additional costs from Hurricane Katrina, the Army needed some adjustment to be made.

Without transferring funds totalling $1.43 billion the Pentagon said that the Army would fail to pay its bills. In lieu of borrowing from accounts used to protect forces in Iraq and to restore damaged equipment, which includes the purchase of mortars and trucks and armored vehicles, the Army’s request has now been adjusted to borrow from the Air Force’s capital account and a secondary generic account known as the Iraq Freedom Account, which comes under the direct control of Secretary Rumsfeld. The stopgap measure was headed to Congress the last week of September and was not expected to meet with much resistance.

The federal disasters the U.S. endured during August and September 2005 have but exacerbated the budget and manufacturing deficiencies for troops serving in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, as exhibited by the Congress and the Pentagon. But largely there have been political and communication problems since the onset of the War in Iraq between the two entities and it would be less than fair for lawmakers and public officials to use the storms and floods as an excuse. For after all, both the House and the Senate deferred progress on the defense bills days before they actually broke for their August vacations and went on to other legislation, for fear they would perhaps have to delay their five-week holidays.

Perhaps the remnants of the disasters in the Gulf region will be a reminder to the American people that legislation not only affects certain people, such as the soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the families without homes in the Gulf, but all of us. For the powers-that-be in Washington sometimes are faced with decisions which are a matter of life and death, when we least expect it. And because they have the political power along with control of the purse strings, they must be taken to task and held accountable by all of the people.