Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
The Hill
September 30, 2008
By Roxana Tiron
Army Secretary Pete Geren cautioned on Monday that Wall Street’s financial crisis and Congress’s $700 billion rescue plan could take a toll on the Army’s budget in the coming years.
The financial crisis could exacerbate the fact that defense budgets traditionally are cut drastically at the end of wars, Geren said.
Geren, a former four-term congressman from Texas, did not give a specific timeline for the budget cuts, but said that the next eight to nine years will “involve incredible risk.”
The financial rescue plan “potentially exacerbates a cycle,” Geren told The Hill after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Ultimately, resources are limited, and so much of the fighting has been paid off the budget.”
Geren explained that the defense budget has experienced ups and downs over the decades.
The next downturn in the budget is expected to come up in the next few years as U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are potentially winding down.
“It will take extraordinary leadership to delay that [downturn]. It won’t stop it,” Geren said.
“I have frankly been amazed and pleasantly surprised that Congress stood with us as it has over the last seven years of war,” Geren said.
The defense budget has steadily grown since 2001 and the Army has been able to pay for many of its expenses out of emergency supplementals. But those bills are expected to shrink, if not disappear completely over the next few years.
The Army is facing the Herculean task of repairing its war-torn equipment, paying for new weapons systems and taking care of its soldiers and their families. About 75 percent of the Army’s costs are for personnel.
Because of its high personnel costs, the Army does not have the flexibility of other services to spend on new weapons systems, Geren explained. He anticipated that the Army will face a “real challenge” with its flagship modernization program, called the Future Combat Systems, its new helicopter programs and a new endeavor to replace its decades-old Humvees.
“As an Army we have to be very concerned about it,” Geren said.
September 30, 2008
By Roxana Tiron
Army Secretary Pete Geren cautioned on Monday that Wall Street’s financial crisis and Congress’s $700 billion rescue plan could take a toll on the Army’s budget in the coming years.
The financial crisis could exacerbate the fact that defense budgets traditionally are cut drastically at the end of wars, Geren said.
Geren, a former four-term congressman from Texas, did not give a specific timeline for the budget cuts, but said that the next eight to nine years will “involve incredible risk.”
The financial rescue plan “potentially exacerbates a cycle,” Geren told The Hill after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Ultimately, resources are limited, and so much of the fighting has been paid off the budget.”
Geren explained that the defense budget has experienced ups and downs over the decades.
The next downturn in the budget is expected to come up in the next few years as U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are potentially winding down.
“It will take extraordinary leadership to delay that [downturn]. It won’t stop it,” Geren said.
“I have frankly been amazed and pleasantly surprised that Congress stood with us as it has over the last seven years of war,” Geren said.
The defense budget has steadily grown since 2001 and the Army has been able to pay for many of its expenses out of emergency supplementals. But those bills are expected to shrink, if not disappear completely over the next few years.
The Army is facing the Herculean task of repairing its war-torn equipment, paying for new weapons systems and taking care of its soldiers and their families. About 75 percent of the Army’s costs are for personnel.
Because of its high personnel costs, the Army does not have the flexibility of other services to spend on new weapons systems, Geren explained. He anticipated that the Army will face a “real challenge” with its flagship modernization program, called the Future Combat Systems, its new helicopter programs and a new endeavor to replace its decades-old Humvees.
“As an Army we have to be very concerned about it,” Geren said.