Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who sits on the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, strongly opposed the military’s unveiling of its additions to the Senate’s proposed defense budget for the coming year, according to the paper.
The fiscal year 2012 defense bill does not authorize any funding of the Futenma relocation on Okinawa, a military buildup on Guam, or tour changes that would allow servicemembers in South Korea to bring families, until the Department of Defense considers alternatives and provides a master plan.
The announcement is another crack in the U.S. resolve to follow through with plans that have been years in the making and have caused deep political difficulties with longtime ally Japan. It is also the most recent shot fired from the powerful Armed Services Committee, which has become loudly critical of military plans that could eventually cost the U.S. and its allies tens of billions of dollars, according to Stars & Stripes.
“This subcommittee will not authorize such multibillion-dollar projects without showing the rigorous analysis behind why we are doing what we are doing and a well-thought-out master plan of how we are going to get it done at a set cost and on a set schedule,” McCaskill said during the hearing. “This is oversight at its most basic level.”
The comments closely follow criticisms made last month by Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va.; and John McCain, R-Ariz.
After visiting the region, Levin and Webb announced that the military’s plans were “unrealistic, unworkable and unaffordable,” proposing that the military drop plans to relocate Futenma and modify plans to allocate 8,600 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, according to the Stars & Stripes.
Members of the subcommittee have backed up their suspicion of the DOD’s proposals with a recent Government Accountability Office report that found the military had not developed accurate cost estimates of its plans in the region — the total price tag could actually be close to $46 billion over the next decade — and had not appropriately considered alternatives, according to the article.
McCaskill said the subcommittee will require several steps, including “sound planning and justification” from military leaders and the Pentagon before giving the green light.
Not surprised
Sen. Judi Guthertz, chair of the Legislature’s committee on the military buildup, said she was not surprised to hear of the position of McCaskill, that her subcommittee (Readiness and Management Support) of the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee will oppose any further funding for the buildup until the Commandant of the Marine Corps issues his position on force deployment in the Asia-Pacific region, and until the Pentagon issues a Master Plan laying out the timing and cost of the proposed buildup.
“I personally heard the concerns expressed by Senator Webb and two of his colleagues — John McCain and Carl Levin — when they visited Guam, and have reviewed the recent GAO report, which states there is no clarity regarding the costs of the military buildup,” Guthertz said. “We must be patient and wait to see what happens.”
An official vote of the sub-committee is ahead, followed by an official vote by the full committee, followed by the official vote of the full Senate, and then a conference committee with the House of Representatives which has just passed the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act including funding for buildup projects in Guam.
“Our focus should be to continue our efforts to show our Marines and their families that we want to welcome them here with open arms. Last night’s national news reported that one in four of our Marines are returning from combat in Afghanistan with significant post-traumatic stress disorders. They are all volunteers who signed up to defend our nation and they are in the same division, the 3rd, that charged ashore here on July 21, 1944, and fought through to August. We have a debt to that division that we can never repay and we should demonstrate that loud and clear,” Guthertz said.
