WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Marine Corps will plead for an additional $4 billion in its fiscal year 2008 budget but has been rebuffed so far behind the scenes, a Marine Corps official said Thursday.
"We'll comply with our fiscal guidance, but don't ask me to tell you that $19 billion is good enough," a Marine Corps official told United Press International.
While the U.S. Army has been unusually vocal and specific in discussing its 2008 budget crisis -- it says it needs about $22 billion more than the $114 billion it was originally slated to get next year -- the Marine Corps has not until now made its needs known publicly.
The Marine Corps -- at 181,000 people, by far the smallest branch of the military, and one that prides itself on doing things on a shoestring -- is preparing to make its arguments public and on the record in the next few weeks, he said.
It has become a matter of conscience.
Marine casualty reports come into the official's office daily from Iraq -- three Thursday morning alone. They are a constant reminder of what 18- and 19-year-old kids are willing to do for the United States.
"I am increasingly uncomfortable that they are doing a lot more for the country than we are for doing for them," he said. "We will not be doing right by them if we don't make powerful arguments."
"That's the right argument, telling the truth."
The Marine Corps is slated to receive a fiscal year 2008 baseline budget of $18.6 billion. But according to the official, the Corps needs $2 billion more in its baseline budget and another $2 billion in the Navy budget for things the Navy provides to the Corps -- primarily aircraft like helicopters and the V-22 Osprey, but also medical personnel, health care and other accounts.
"Right now, the Navy and Marine Corps are making scary, terrible tradeoffs," the official said. "The war is having a corrosive effect on the Marine Corps."
"Our baseline budget is inadequate for sustaining a force of 175,000 Marines. While supplementals are paying for an additional 5,000 Marines, basic long-term needs are not being met," he said.
Earlier this year, the Marine Corps made its case for a budget 20 percent larger to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which it believed would make the president understand the Marine Corps' mounting needs.
It was not a successful tactic.
"It's inside the building politics," the official explained. "We thought we'd be respected for staying within our lane. It turns out that was not the right thing to do."
The Pentagon budget process is protracted and arcane. The military is currently spending its fiscal year 2007 budget. The 2008 budget request will be made in February 2007, and will be largely locked down by December 2006.
But this year, the Army changed the equation. The Army in August challenged its $114 billion "baseline" budget. It was a dramatic turn in a traditionally contentious but routine process. Normally, the Office of the Secretary of Defense negotiates the Pentagon "topline" with the White House and the services fight each other for dollars within that amount. The Army declined to play by the old rules, fighting back hard for money above the topline, and airing its needs in leaks and then on-the-record statements to the press.
"The Army has done an awesome job at strategic information operations over the last two years, a very effective job," the Marine official said. "I'm a big fan of the argument they are making.
"And we should be making it too."
After five years of war, wearing out vehicles and ammunition and sending soldiers repeatedly into the fray in Afghanistan and Iraq for 12 months at a time, the Army said it needed at least $138 billion in fiscal 2008 to do everything asked of it, about an 18 percent increase.
Last week, the White House came through with an additional $7 billion, still well short of the $22 billion the Army asked for. That brought the Army's 2008 budget up to $121 billion, roughly a 5 percent increase.
The White House gave about a 1 percent increase to the Air Force and to the Navy, which amounts to about $1.3 billion each.
"I've already told you the Navy needs $2 billion more (for Marine accounts alone, not including its own needs) and the Marine Corps needs $2 billion. And we're gonna argue about $1.3 billion?" he asked. "We have not made a strong public argument that we are not getting the right amount in the baseline budget. If we're not asking for it, that's part of the reason we're not getting it."
"What's the benefit of being quiet?" the official asked. "The Army is going to be short about two-thirds of what they need. We're going to be short by a lot more than that."
Congress has provided the military more than $300 billion in war supplementals since 2001, but even those do not cover the bills. They come too late in the year and they are restricted in how they can be used. By law, they can only go for war "consumables" -- bullets and bombs and the cost of paying soldiers combat bonuses.
But wars have hidden costs that supplementals don't touch: additional health care, family benefits, barracks and training for the thousands of extra troops on the payrolls, among other things. Baseline budgets are tapped to cover those costs and money is drained from buying replacement and upgraded helicopters, tanks, vehicles and guns to plug the gaps.
"We are in the middle of a long war. Quite frankly, that's fundamentally wrong," the official said. "We have to ask ourselves what we are willing to risk, whether we are willing to be as vocal as we need to be, to make people uncomfortable."
