Claude Bolton, who is assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, reiterated the Army's support for the 3% of DoD TOA to S&T at the AUSA Winter Conference. The article stated that:
Bolton replied that DOD maintains a goal of spending three percent of the Army's budget toward science and technology programs.However, Bolton acknowledged a "food fight as to whether that's three percent [in] real growth, is that three percent compounded every year, or so forth," he said.
"We've tried to flat-line that," Bolton said. "We've got a war to fight and we're trying to do some other things. We're finding other ways to leverage the technology from the other services and industry."
Again its good to see another senior leader in the Pentagon embrace the goal of 3%.
Full article after the jump
Defense Today
February 17, 2005
Pg. 1
Bolton: Army Needs Two Years Of Supplemental Budgets After Wars End
By Scott Nance
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.—The Army will need supplemental appropriations even after combat in Iraq ends, so as to enable the service to complete its transformation into a modular force, according to Claude Bolton, the Army's top acquisition official.
Those peacetime supplemental measures would provide opportunities to industry in terms of Army procurement, added Bolton, who is assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology. He spoke at an Association of the United States Army conference here.
The Bush administration has been funding ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through supplemental appropriations over and above the Department of Defense's regular annual budgets.
On Monday, Bush submitted to Congress a request for an $82 billion fiscal 2005 supplemental defense appropriation, separate from its $419.3 billion fiscal 2006 Department of Defense (DOD) budget. That supplemental amount would include $74.9 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Critics argue that the use of supplementals masks the true size of the administration's defense build-up and balloons an already-soaring federal budget deficit.
Supporters of supplementals say that those extra budgets offer needed flexibility to address day-to-day needs of war, which often are unknowable well in advance, noting that regular budgets move through a process that is about three years from conception to final spending .
However, the adminstration also has packed into its supplementals the funds that the Army needs to pay for its ongoing transformation to a more "modular" service, one based on brigade units of action.
Indeed,the administration should seek two years of supplemental measures even after wars end in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Bolton.
Senior Army officials have been pitching that idea over the last year or so to President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, members of Congress, and others, Bolton told Defense Today in an interview following his public remarks.
The two years of peacetime supplementals, Bolton said, would relate to the increase of 30,000 troops in Army end-strength, which the service has been using to help it accomplish its modular restructuring, while simultaneously engaging in combat.
"That's allowed all these changes. Otherwise, you couldn't do that," Bolton said.
"Some folks want to make that [increase] permanent. Our [position] is [that it's a] pressure-relief valve to allow us to do all these changes and eventually we would shrink that back to numbers the Congress would support," he added.
The Army needs a certain level of funding to enable its restructuring to happen, Bolton said.
"That level of funding is what we have right now—with supplementals," he said. "So if the war stops today, I'd still need two years' worth of that level of funding, which is supplemental."
The Army later would add that level of funding to its annual base budget, he said.
Bolton declined to elaborate on the specific amount of those two peacetime supplementals.
These supplementals, meanwhile, would provide opportunities to defense contractors in the form of additional Army procurements of trucks and other vehicles, "blue force" tracking systems, communications, and more equipment.
"That allows you just to modularize everything," he said. "Otherwise, if you drop it down, okay, fine, but how do I prepare this Army for the next fight?"
In related news, following his remarks, Bolton was asked about the Army's spending on research and development for advanced weapons and other systems.
Bolton replied that DOD maintains a goal of spending three percent of the Army's budget toward science and technology programs.
However, Bolton acknowledged a "food fight as to whether that's three percent [in] real growth, is that three percent compounded every year, or so forth," he said.
"We've tried to flat-line that," Bolton said. "We've got a war to fight and we're trying to do some other things. We're finding other ways to leverage the technology from the other services and industry."