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DoD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Under Secretary Jonas from the Pentagon To view the slides .
SEC.
GATES: Good afternoon.
Today we're releasing President Bush's two
budget requests for the Department of Defense.
First, there is the Fiscal
Year 2008 defense budget, which includes the base budget, and the FY 2008
global war on terror request.
And secondly, the FY 2007 emergency
supplemental appropriations request to fund war- related costs for the
remainder of this fiscal year.
In summary, the budget being requested by the president will make the
necessary strategic investments to modernize and recapitalize key
capabilities in the armed forces; to sustain the all-volunteer military by
reducing stress on the force and improving the quality of life for our
troops and their families; to improve readiness through additional training
and maintenance, and by resetting forces following their deployment
overseas; and fund U.S.
military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and
elsewhere in the ongoing campaign against violent jihadist networks around
the globe.
Since 1993, when I last served in government, the defense budget actually
has taken a smaller relative share of our national wealth, while the world
has gotten more complicate and, arguably, more dangerous.
The resources we
devote to defense should be at the level to adequately meet the challenges
of the global strategic environment the United States faces today.
To provide more detail on these budget requests, I will now turn the
briefing over to Tina Jonas, the comptroller of the Pentagon, and to Admiral
Steve Stanley, the director of force structure, resources and assessment for
the Joint Staff.
Thank you.
Tina?
Q Can you take a question, Mr.
Secretary?
SEC.
GATES: No.
MS.
JONAS: Thank you, Mr.
Secretary.
And welcome to all of you again.
I have with me Steve Stanley from the
Joint Staff, as the secretary said.
And I would like -- before we get
started, I just want to point out, I believe that today we will have -- on
the Web we'll have copies of what we're calling the summary justification
book for the global war on terror budget for fiscal year 2008, and also a
summary justification book, which will be on the Web, for the 2007
supplemental.
And I think many of you are used to some of our products as well.
We
provide the weapons book to help you with some of those questions.
So with that, let me get started.
I'd first of all like to thank my staff and thank all the assistant
secretaries and comptrollers of the services.
We've been very busy over the
last several weeks.
We today provided over 38,000 pages of justification to
the Congress, and we've just met with the congressional leadership to
discuss the budget.
So with that, let me just get going here.
For fiscal year 2008, the budget consists of two parts.
The first part is the fiscal year 2008 base budget of $481.4 billion.
And
our priorities are listed there.
We'll be going through those in a moment,
but they include increasing combat capability, improving force readiness,
developing future combat capabilities and improving the quality of life for
our men and women in uniform.
Accompanying that budget will be the fiscal year 2008 global war on terror
request, and we believe that this will -- this is an estimate.
It's more or
less a straight-line estimate, but it's intended to provide resources we
need for the full fiscal year.
And the third piece, as I've just said, is the fiscal year 2007
supplemental of $93.4 billion.
So we'll go -- we'll walk through each of these pieces.
First, to the base budget.
Many of you are familiar with our account
structure, but many are not, so we've broken up the budget into four
categories, essentially.
The budget invests in four primary areas:
readiness and support, $146.5 billion, representing about 30 percent of our
budget; strategic modernization, which is $176.8 billion, or 38 percent of
our budget; training and facilities and family housing represents about
$21.1 billion, or 4 percent of our budget; and military pay and benefits,
including our health care, $137 billion, or 28 percent of our budget.
Walking through each of these pieces here for a moment.
The military pay
and benefits and health care provides for pay and benefits for 2.1 million
active and reserve military members.
And I've talked about the amounts
there.
Included in this budget is $38.7 billion to sustain our high-quality
healthcare program for 9.2 million beneficiaries.
Of note, we've got $15
billion in this portion of the budget for the basic allowance for housing,
and I'll talk to that a little bit later, and $4.3 billion for basic
allowance for subsistence.
In addition, in our facilities piece, to improve the condition of
approximately 3,731 camps, bases and stations worldwide, the budget includes
$21.1 billion.
We also include in this area our Base Realignment and
Closure pieces.
We're going to realign 24 major installations this year and
close another 25 bases.
And as I mentioned, 2.9 billion for family housing
is in that portion.
In the readiness and modernization portions of our budget, we include
$146.5 billion for readiness, and the key pieces are listed there.
About
$65.9 billion for readiness.
That include s training for a full range of
contingencies, including full-spectrum contingencies.
Base operations and
recruiting, another $59.9 billion.
Maintaining equipment and buildings,
another $18.2 (billion).
And our commissaries for $2.5 billion.
In the strategic modernization piece -- this is of interest of many in
Congress and many here -- $176.8 billion.
Included in that are ships, Navy
aircraft, $62.4 billion.
This supports the Navy's 30- year shipbuilding
plan.
The budget includes eight ships.
Aircraft and satellites represent
another $50.9 billion; ground capabilities and support systems, $37.9
billion; our science and technology and chemical and biological defense,
another $16.8 billion; and the Missile Defense Agency, this includes funds
for the Missile Defense Agency of $8.8 billion.
What I'd like to do now is just run through some of the increases.
And so
we've put a comparison here to the '07, and this is -- we're using '07
projected enacted level.
As many of you know, the joint funding resolution
in the Congress has not yet been completed, and so we are projecting, based
on the joint resolution of the House, that we would finish our '07 bill at
$432.4 billion.
That would give us an increase of $49 billion.
This is an
11.3 percent increase over that projected enacted level.
It's real growth
of 8.6 percent.
And the key things that we have mentioned before -- in this category, we're
including the $12.1 billion to increase our ground forces, and we'll talk to
that in a minute and I'll have Admiral Stanley elaborate a bit on that, but
this is the 92,000 that you've heard about, increasing the Army and Navy --
or Marine Corps end strength.
16.8 billion (dollars) we applied to improving readiness in additional
support; another $8.8 billion goes to develop our future capabilities --
these are our investment accounts, procurement and research and development;
and we put another 11.3 billion (dollars) to sustain our all-volunteer force
and their families.
Now if we could turn to the next chart.
I'll have Admiral Stanley talk to some of the capability here, but as you
can see, this would increase the Army from 42 brigade combat teams to 48;
we'd be moving to a(n) end strength of 547,400 as opposed to the 482,400; and
the Marines would go to 202,000 from their current 175,000.
Admiral Stanley?
ADM.
STANLEY: So this is based on national military strategy for --
national military strategic risk assessment, which the Joint Chiefs put
together.
And what they did was they assembled a view of what's happening
around the globe and in cyberspace about the strategic environment.
And
what they found was that there's three issues that are really driving the
risk.
And the first risk-driver is the number of forces that are deployed forward
currently.
Secondly, it's the equipment utilization and wear that those
forces are using.
And then it's actually the operational tempo that is
affecting the risk.
The result of that risk is that our forces that are forward now are trained
for the mission that that they have been given, which is primarily
counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What we're challenged
with is maintaining the full-spectrum training capability that our nation
requires of our forces.
So that developed a capacity issue, and what's
reflected here is the ground forces component of that capacity.
And you can
see from the current baseline, on the left hand of the chart, that we're
growing Army ground forces from 42-brigade combat teams up to 48-brigade
combat teams.
There's also support forces that are part of that growth.
The small letters at the bottom there is really significant.
And it's --
one year home-station for one year deployed is what our forces are
experiencing today.
As these new forces come online across the future
year's defense plan, what we'll be able to achieve is one year deployed for
every two years at home.
That two years at home-station, along with the
required resources to actually train and outfit our forces, will allow us to
establish that full-spectrum training capability that we need.
The similar
picture there, for the Marine Corps forces, where they're going from 2.9
Marine Expeditionary Forces up to 3, and again, it's the same story: The
significance here is the increased home-station time allows us to develop
that full-spectrum capability.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
The next area that we talked about a little bit is improving the force
readiness and support.
We applied another $16.8 billion to this category.
Of note is about 45 percent of that addition went to training and additional
operations for the full-spectrum training, increasing combat training center
rotations, and increasing ship- deployed steaming days, and flying hours as
well.
So about 7.5 billion, you see there, going directly to those
readiness accounts; an additional 4.7 billion for depot maintenance,
intelligence and support; and also another 4.6 billion for equipment
recapitalization, so another area of significant emphasis in this budget.
In developing future capabilities -- and I'll have Admiral Stanley talk to
some of this as well -- in our modernization accounts, adding another $8.8
billion primarily to our ground, maritime and air systems, although we did
apply some additional amounts to the space- based systems.
And I'll ask
Admiral Stanley to talk to this slide.
ADM.
STANLEY: Several key initiatives here.
If you look at the joint
ground capabilities column, the far left there, what you see there is the
reflection of our initiative to spin out -- some of the capabilities are
being procured for the future combat system into the non-future combat
system-equipped Army.
A good example of that is the integrated combat
system, which will be fundamental to how the future combat system will work
in the future.
We're using that capability and expanding that out into the
rest of the Army.
If you look at the joint maritime capabilities, what you see is the first
significant funding for the next generation of aircraft carrier.
And as Ms.
Jonas has already pointed out, this is eight ships in the FY '08 budget,
which is significant.
In the joint air capabilities, we're starting to ramp up the Joint Strike
Fighter procurement.
It's going from two in FY '07 up to 12 in FY '08.
It's the first year that we'll be procuring the short take-off and landing
variant of the Joint Strike Fighter.
In space-based capabilities, continuing of a lot of the efforts that are
ongoing there, but I guess I would highlight the transformational satellite,
which requires -- will provide the bandwidth we'll need for these future
systems in the future.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
In the area of improving quality of life, again we add emphasis, as we have
done in the past, $11.3 billion in this area.
Specifically, we add $2.1
billion for military pay.
This brings the military pay increase to 3
percent.
The civilian pay raise will also be 3 percent.
But of note there,
military pay is up on average since 2001 of 32 percent.
So that's an
important point for our service members.
Housing and subsistence.
We added a billion-six in this area.
This
increases the basic allowance for housing 4.2 percent and continues the
commitment to no out-of-pocket costs.
Of note, we're adding another -- over
2,800 additional privatized units, bringing to the total for the end of
2008 of privatized units of 194,000.
So that's an important point.
On the base operations side, we added another billion-nine.
This addresses
our camps, bases and stations.
For BRAC we added 5.7 over the prior enacted
-- projected enacted level to implement BRAC.
And of course, we're still
working, going to need to work with the Congress on this joint funding
resolution to work that.
In addition, we provide -- we sustain the healthcare benefits and provide
$38.7 billion in our budget for that request.
So those are the basics of the base budget.
I know you're anxious to
answer (sic) some questions, so I'll get to the '07 supplemental.
(To staff) Can we have that slide, please?
And I believe you have copies of this.
What we've tried to do this year
for the supplementals and for the GWOT request is break out the categories
in functional areas so it's a little bit easier, more readily understood by
people who are not budgeteers or accountants.
But of primary note here, you can see that in the area of what we call
continuing the fight -- this includes our operations, force protection, IED,
the security forces, Iraq and Afghan security forces, our coalition support
--
ADM.
STANLEY: Chart 13, please.
MS.
JONAS: Yes.
Sorry.
(To staff) You got that? Okay, good.
Thank you.
You can see that we've added another billion-five for coalition support and
our Commanders Emergency Response Program.
Also, for our regional war on
terror, our combatant commanders have requested some funds there, and for
military construction.
So the total under that category is $68.6 billion.
This request also includes another 13.9 to reconstitute the force.
This is
repairing, replacing and upgrading combat losses or equipment that's
experienced wear and tear in the theater.
And we can go through that in a
minute and some of the details there.
And of course, the new piece is the
enhancing the forces portion, $10.9 billion, the portion on plusing-up the
$5.6 billion.
I believe you guys probably have seen this number before.
We'll walk through that a bit.
The acceleration of two brigade combat teams
and one regimental combat team, and a portion to get the -- grow the force.
We call this grow the force.
This is for the permanent end strength that
we're adding, the 92,000, to be able to build some infrastructure and
barracks and things so they have a place to reside when they come on.
Okay, next slide, please.
Again, some of the details here on the operations -- I think many of you
know this.
We have those on your slides.
I won't go through most of this,
but obviously our operations costs there are the biggest component of
continuing the fight, and those figures have not changed much.
If you look
at them on an annual basis, they have not changed considerably.
Force protection is an area of added emphasis, obviously, and our coalition
support and commanders' emergency response piece I've talked to.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
On the security forces piece, we're asking for another $3.8 billion
to train the Iraq security forces -- I'll have the admiral talk to this in a
minute -- and also another 5.9 billion (dollars) for the Afghan security
forces.
The key distinctions here for the Afghan security forces -- this is a
considerable increase over the prior year -- is the acceleration and
expansion of the program.
And, Admiral, do you want talk to some of this?
ADM.
STANLEY: Yes.
And this initiative is I think key to the strategy in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
And what it reflects is a growth from about -- for
Iraq, it reflects a growth from about 328,000 up to an end state of about
362,000 Iraq security forces that we actually complete at the end of FY '08.
Similarly, for Afghanistan, there is a growth from the existing level up to
about 152,000 at the end of FY '08.
So those properly trained and equipped security forces will allow them to
assume a greater role in the security of their countries and allow us to
achieve our long-term objectives.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
Next slide, please.
Reconstituting the force -- some of the types of equipment that we will be
requesting in this '07 emergency supplemental, including seven UH-60
helicopters, one CV- 22 -- these are examples; more detail is available in
the justification book -- additional UAVs and two Joint Strike Fighters.
We'll also be requesting funding for some of the lift capability,
additional C-130s, et cetera.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
The U.S.
forces plus-up.
We have details in the justification.
I
think those are available on the web, should be now.
But it provides
basically additional five brigade combat teams for about 21,500 troops and
increased naval presence.
About $4 billion of this is for the Army; the
balance is for the naval presence.
Admiral, do you have anything else you want to add to that?
ADM.
STANLEY: It reflects -- this reflects the -- you know, advice of the
combatant commanders, and the five-brigade-combat-team- plus up in Iraq
happens over a period of several months to establish and reinforce the
security in Baghdad.
The Marine piece of this is two additional battalions
and an additional Marine Expeditionary Force.
There is some extension of
forces that are currently in theater; that as these new forces flow in on
top of it, that's how we increase the size of it.
And what's included here
in the FY '07 emergency supplemental request is the cost associated with
completing this in FY '07.
MS.
JONAS: Of note -- and I'm going to turn to the '08 GWOT piece -- but of
note is we are not requesting funds beyond this fiscal year for the plus-up.
Okay.
I've already talked to the other two points there.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
For the fiscal year 2008 GWOT, you'll notice the key changes.
This is more or less a straight line, and we have included, again for your
convenience, in the back of the press release, you will see a handout that
breaks it out functionally.
You can do the comparison of the numbers there.
But essentially, this is what we call a straight line more or less to the
previous year.
The areas that you will change -- in other words, going down
-- are Afghan -- Iraq and Afghan security forces go down, and obviously, we
don't have the plus-up included in this portion of the budget.
The BCTs and
RCTs are not -- there's a tail to that of about a billion six (dollars), but
that is the smallest piece of it.
And obviously, the grow the force piece
becomes part of the base.
So we believe these funds will continue to provide what is necessary.
The Congress has asked us to estimate our costs, and this, we believe
complies and is consistent with the congressional direction to the
department.
And I won't -- we've got plenty of details on the Web for you
on this, so I won't take a lot more time on that.
So in summary, that's what we're planning to submit.
We have submitted, I
think, most of the detailed justification this morning, about 38,000 pages
per set, and we're sending up probably over a million pages in total.
Tony?
Q A lot of people are going to wonder why the '08 cost of the war is
$18 billion less than the '07 cost of the war.
And how solid is the 141
(billion dollar) figure? Do you anticipate this holding on (against all ?)
costs?
And I had a follow-on.
MS.
JONAS: Yeah, sure.
Obviously, I mean the key changes are those that I
mentioned for the -- were not including the additional forces.
At this point, we're not planning on submitting anything else in terms of
an additional supplemental, if that's what you're concerned about.
But
again, this is an estimate.
We did our best estimate this time.
I think we
know that it will be wrong; obviously things will -- conditions will change
and we'll have to adjust at that point.
But this was our best judgment at
this time.
It is based on an assumption of 140,000 troops in Iraq and
20,000 in Afghanistan, which is our baseline prior to these policy changes
that were made on the surge.
Q There's a lot of criticism, a lot of skepticism in Congress about the
'07 supplemental being a "Christmas tree," basically, opened up by Mr.
England's memo in October.
To what extent did you -- using the Christmas
tree analogy -- play the Grinch versus Santa Claus in letting the services
lard the supplemental with things that should be in the base budget?
MS.
JONAS: Well, comptrollers aren't always accused of being the most
friendly people on the planet! But we did scrub quite a bit out of here.
We used a pretty tight rule set to scrub these budgets, and we did return to
the services some of their ideas.
We've got a pretty careful scrub.
I know there's been some concern about the addition of the Joint Strike
Fighters.
The Air Force is here and they can answer your questions on that.
But essentially, there were three documented combat losses of F-16s
recently, and so, you know, under the rule set that we used before, combat
losses are fair game here and so we included them.
We do not have an open
F-16 line.
There is an FMS line.
But we wanted to make sure that we
cover those.
So obviously the Hill will take a look at that also.
Q (Off mike) -- have you pushed back? Can you give one example?
MS.
JONAS: Oh, I don't want to spoil the party here.
(Laughs.)
Q A follow-up to the Joint Strike Fighter question.
I was just
wondering, which version -- (inaudible) -- for that? Is that the Air Force
version? And how much money are you including for that?
And just out of curiosity, too, I mean -- (inaudible) -- so how many years,
are we talking about the end of the decade before you're going to start --
(inaudible) -- production lines? So I'm just curious how that fits into
everything.
MS.
JONAS: This is the F-35.
Two are included, and I'll have the admiral
talk to the capabilities.
We understand that these aircraft wouldn't be
delivered until later.
The question is, where do you capture the cost? And
we have to have some place that we can capture the cost of the loss, and
it's not built into the baseline.
Q And which version? What kind of price are you --
ADM.
STANLEY: It's the Air Force version.
MS.
JONAS: We have about 400 million in the budget for two.
ADM.
STANLEY: But they should deliver in FY '10.
Q So that's 200 million apiece, then?
ADM.
STANLEY: Yes.
MS.
JONAS: Do we have the precise figure, John (sp)?
STAFF: It is about 400 million.
Correct.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
Okay.
Q That's a lot for a plane that's supposed to be $64 million, though,
isn't it?
STAFF: Yeah, you're early in the production.
Q Is there a reason why you didn't request funding for the plus-up
beyond this fiscal year?
MS.
JONAS: I think the secretary has said on the record in the past that
this is viewed as a near-term initiative.
And so we're relying on his
direction and his guidance.
And I think there has also been some concern
about the CBO estimate that has been out in the public.
And we looked at
that, and one of the -- I think they are assuming new troops, and they're
also assuming a longer period of time.
So this is a near term initiative.
Steve, do you want to --
ADM.
STANLEY: No, I think that's right.
I mean, right now what we
envision is a fairly short plus-up.
So that's what the basis of the
planning is, and we'll see if that's accurate or not.
Q The 12.1 billion you mentioned for growing the Army and the Marine
Corps, how is that divided between those two services? And also, could you
address the question about extra money for counter- IED? I think you've got
it in more than one segment of the -- how much does that add up to?
MS.
JONAS: I think -- my recollection is about 7.7 of that is for the
Army, and about 4.4 of that is for the Marines.
Have I got that right, John (sp)?
STAFF: Yeah, that's right.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
And this follow-on question?
Q The counter-IED money, which I think you have as a couple different
segments of the -- what's the total additional money for counter-IED?
MS.
JONAS: John -- I think we've got 2.4 billion in the -- for the
IED Defeat.
And what's the '08 number?
STAFF: (Off mike) -- force protection kinds of capability we're buying
are, obviously, like up-armored humvees and things like that that have a
counter-IED kind of an effect.
But the actual effort that is headed up by
the Joint IED Defeat Office is $2.4 billion.
Q And that's for '08?
ADM.
STANLEY: 2.4 is the additional '07.
MS.
JONAS: '07.
'07.
ADM.
STANLEY: Additional '07.
Q What about '08?
MS.
JONAS: John, you got the '08 number?
STAFF: The '08 is $4 billion.
MS.
JONAS: 4 billion (dollars), okay.
Okay.
I pointed at this fellow in the back here.
Okay.
Q If I understand you correctly, you're saying you don't anticipate
another budget request.
Can you fund the increase in U.S.
troops in Iraq if
it goes beyond this fiscal year?
MS.
JONAS: Well, obviously that is something for the secretary and the
senior leadership of this department and the senior leadership of the
Congress to look toward.
I am confident -- we just finished briefing the
congressional leadership, and I'm confident that as things -- conditions
change, we'll be in conversations with them about it.
Yes.
Q Can I -- going straight -- right to -- there seems to be another
attempt to kill off the second engine, the Rolls Royce engine.
Did you
consult with the British about that, and can you explain the rationale
behind it?
MS.
JONAS: You want to --
ADM.
STANLEY: I can explain the rationale.
I mean, the rationale is
basically that the investment -- the cost of the investment, we don't
believe, is the risk of -- it's just offset by the risk reduction.
So
that's the basic business case that we use to make the decision to again,
you know, seek congressional support for not developing the second engine.
I can't address whether or not it was discussed with the U.K.
MS.
JONAS: Okay.
Q And then -- here's a question here about the TRICARE Military Health
Care System.
Does this budget number assume a proposal to raise the fees
again once again this year? It didn't work out last year.
Are you going to
go back and (increase it ?)?
MS.
JONAS: Yeah, the budget does assume that there will be a change to the
program based on -- there's a congressionally directed -- mandated task
force that's now considering proposals.
I do have Dr.
Bill Winkenwerder
here to discuss that with you further, if you'd like to get additional
detail on that.
Okay.
Q Go back to the '07 supp.
You have it slide on the plus-up, divide
into three.
One is the permanent end strength.
Ignoring that for a second,
you had the actual increase in the number, and there's a second number that
is accelerated -- two BCTs and one RCT.
Is that permanent end strength or
is that also part of just speeding these guys to theater over the last
couple months?
MS.
JONAS: Let me -- I'll have Steve address that in a second.
But you saw on the first slide -- you saw that the Army was structured at
42 BCTs.
That was accelerating the development -- or the establishment of
those BCTs.
Q That is -- both the second and third numbers both go to permanent end
strengths, and the first number is the only one that really goes to the
surge.
Is that--
ADM.
STANLEY: That's correct.
MS.
JONAS: Yeah, yeah.
ADM.
STANLEY: And there's really three parts -- go ahead.
MS.
JONAS: No.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Q Thanks.
Can you tell us what kind of guidance you got from the White
House in terms of taking on additional health care costs?
There was talk of $40 billion that you guys were going to have to absorb.
Is that the number, or did you guys get a bill from them that you had to --
MS.
JONAS: No, I -- (inaudible) -- conversations on that.
Q A question on JSF, and then I have a quick follow-up.
The Air Force
is briefing that the ramp-up for JSF is going to plateau at 48 airplanes
instead of 110, which would have a net effect on the per- UNIT cost of the
aircraft.
What are your concerns with that program's costs spiraling upward
as a result of fiscal decisions you're making now?
I do have a follow-up, as well.
ADM.
STANLEY: The details of the ramp for the Joint Strike fighter I'll
have to refer you to the Air Force on.
Q They indicated it would plateau at 48.
MS.
JONAS: I think we do have the Air Force here, so you can follow up
with them, the breakout.
I'll take a couple more questions.
Q If I could ask my follow-up?
MS.
JONAS: Sure.
Q On the readiness issue, the Air Force is also briefing that they're
sort of saying that they're cutting back on accounts that are going to have
long-term impacts on their readiness because of the constraints brought on
by the war on terror.
Can you address if there's a plan to sort of get the
Air Force healthy after the readiness, since they're taking kind of like the
Army and the Marine Corps?
MS.
JONAS: I will tell you that the Air Force readiness accounts
specifically for their flying-hour program increases by $2.1 billion.
I
would refer you to the Air Force for the breakout sesion on the rest of it.
And I'll take another question or so.
Q On the war costs, could you just quickly explain why this time you
provided all of the specification information, other than simply that it's a
congressional mandate, for the '08 budget? And is there any plan to provide
similar information on previous supplementals justifying where all that
money went? We haven't seen this before.
MS.
JONAS: Yeah.
I tell you, of course we understand that there's a
broader obligation.
Normally, as many of you know, we provide very detailed
and hard-to-read, in some cases, detailed justification books to our
congressional committees.
They're really designed, in my view, for budget
analysts to look at.
So we felt that because of the broader interest in the
war, that it would be beneficial for us to try to broaden the products that
we provide.
All of the justification is on our website, from prior years as
well.
(To staff) Am I correct on the prior years? (Response not audible.)
We normally publish our justification material.
But again, you wouldn't --
it's hard for most people to understand it, so that's why we moved to doing
what we call the summary justification books.
And we hope that that will be
helpful to the public.
STAFF: Perhaps one or two more, and then we'll have the breakout sessions.
Q Admiral?
MS.
JONAS: I'm sorry.
Q Thanks.
Can you help us just distinguish between activities that
take place under the heading of the GWOT as opposed to those that take place
under what you're calling a regional war on terror?
MS.
JONAS: (To Admiral Stanley.) Yeah, do you want to talk to that?
ADM.
STANLEY: Yeah.
They're both part of the global war on terror, but
the activities in Central Command, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan,
although not exclusively there, are funded in what you, I believe,
designated as the "global war on terror." The regional war on terror
includes things happening outside of that theater, such as the Philippines,
the Trans-Sahara Initiatives, those types of efforts that are not directly
in the Central Command theater but are related to the global war on terror.
MS.
JONAS: I think things like the Trans-Sahara Initiative has been funded
in prior supplementals.
Again, it's designed to address the regional issues
that the combatant commanders have given us.
And I'll take another question and that's it.
How about in the back there?
Q On BRAC, do the numbers reflect the concern with the Joint CR, or do
they just --
MS.
JONAS: Yes --
Q -- (off mike) -- the higher numbers for '08?
MS.
JONAS: If you take a look at our charts, where you see the delta
increase over the prior year, that does.
But we're trying -- we're going to
have to deal with, though, is the implications of that for our '08 baseline
program.
And we'll be working with the installations and environment people
to do that.
Okay.
STAFF: Thanks very much.
If you need some directions to the break-out
sessions, outside the door they'll be able to help you.
Okay.
Q Thank you.
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