Even if the Pentagon isn’t tracking with any serious degree of specificity how much it will cost to rebuild the armed services after the bulk of combat troops are pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan; while at the same time funding new programs and transforming to the “modular Army” concept—which seeks to change the Army’s traditional division-based force structure to smaller brigade formations—you can count on the Government Accountability Office to step in to fill the gap.
In a new report, (PDF) the GAO says that based on its own independent analysis of Army cost estimates and cost data, it looks like the price tag for “equipping modular units, expanding the force, resetting equipment, and replacing prepositioned equipment sets will be at least $190 billion dollars from fiscal years 2004-2013.”
In case you missed it, that doesn’t include ongoing combat/stabilization missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total breaks down something like this:
The Army is currently estimating that it will cost about $43.6 billon for equipment to convert to a modular force from 2005-2011. However, the estimate “was based on preliminary information about modular unit designs and did not fully consider the needs of National Guard units that are being relied on heavily to support ongoing operations.”
The Army estimates that it will require about $18.5 billion for equipment to expand the force by 74,000 over the next several years.
The cost of resetting equipment damaged or lost during military ops “are likely to total at least $118 billion from fiscal years 2004-2013.”
Current Army estimates for the cost of replacing pre-positioned stocks of equipment raided for ongoing operations is “at least $10.6 billion.”
The report admits that these figures are hardly set in stone. Rather, they’re more of a best guess. The report does hold, however, that the Army “is likely to continue to have shortfalls of some key equipment beyond then and believes it will require additional funding to equip modular units through fiscal year 2017.”
Given all this, one might think that the Army would be cranking out the Excel and Powerpoint spreadsheets to try and make some sense of this complicated funding future. Not necessarily so, according to the GAO. Apparently, the Army is breaking up funding requests for these interrelated programs into different budget requests. For its fiscal 2008 budget request for example, the DOD asked for about $156 million for operation and maintenance funds for its prepositioned equipment, while requesting another $300 million for the same program in its request for items related to the Global War on Terror. The GAO scolds that, “without integrating the full costs for Army equipment needs in a single budget, decision makers may have difficulty seeing the complete picture of the Army’s funding needs and the potential for trade-offs among competing defense priorities.”
But when has that ever stopped them before?
Image: US Army
