The
Associated Press has a story looking at the emergency supplementary budget for Iraq, and surprising precisely no-one, finds that it's filled with expensive gadgets that have little to do with Iraq. It's so full of expensive superfluous stuff that actual useful gear like night-vision equipment is being cut back.
A Senate measure to fund the war in Iraq would chop money for troops' night vision equipment and new battle vehicles but add $230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions.
The article talks about the troubled (and expensive) history of the V-22 Osprey, but the nutshell version is that the craft is an engineering nightmare, has never worked right, and has sucked up enormous amounts of money and several lives over the years.
Now, it may be that the Osprey has the potential to be a valuable tool for the military. That's fine. I don't object to them working on it, in principle. What I object to is this:
To pay for the Ospreys, the Senate Appropriations Committee - guided by the Corps - cut into funding for night vision goggles, equipment for destroying mines and explosives, fire suppression systems for light armored vehicles and new vehicles that can be transported into battle inside the V-22.
Maybe, just maybe, we could defer pouring millions of dollars into a new hybrid helicopter/airplane and instead use the money to buy equipment that will keep our soldiers from getting blown up or burnt.
The V-22 should be funded out of the regular Pentagon budget, not a supplemental appropriation which is intended to pay for fighting in Iraq. If we have to be involved in this travesty of a war, is it really too much to ask that we put the welfare of our soldiers above some additional pork for certain politicians?
The aircraft is popular with lawmakers, especially those from Pennsylvania and Texas, which host the manufacturing plants.
This (particular) outrage comes to us courtesy of the Senate Appropriations Committee, whcih probably means Arlen Specter and Kaye Bailey Hutchinson are the guilty parties. KBH chairs the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, though she's just a member of the Subcommittee on Defense.
And, of course, the V-22 is just one example of using "fight the war" as cover for "buy shiny expensive toys from my state/district":
The V-22 is but one example of the Pentagon and lawmakers using the mammoth bill to skirt limits on the already rapidly growing defense budget.
For example, there's more than $3 billion in funding for an ongoing overhaul of the Army that the Pentagon admits isn't directly related to fighting the war.
Meanwhile, senators have added $228 million to procure seven C-17 Air Force cargo planes that can't be completed until 2008 at the earliest - and would eventually cost a total of almost $2 billion.
Some of the stuff that is being crammed into this supplemental bill is things that the military, or at least the Defense Department, wants but can't figure out how to pay for in the (enormous) regular budget. Reorganizing the Army into a brigade structure, for example, is part of Rumsfeld's "transformation" process. Some of it, like those C-17s, is stuff that the military
doesn't particularly want (or isn't high on the budget priority list), but people in Congress force into the budget. Pork, pure and simple.
None of it belongs in a supplemental bill intended to fund the daily operations in Iraq (and, as a minor side note, Katrina recovery is funded out of the same pot of money).
Of course, the key to the whole mess is "support our troops":
Generally speaking, emergency war funding bills get less scrutiny than the Pentagon's regular budget. And since they provide crucial funding for U.S. troops and equipment, most lawmakers are reluctant to criticize the bills.
Support the troops. Right.
-dms