Omnibus Bill’s Defense Plus-Ups Offer Hope That Needed Priority Will be Given to Critical National Security Functions

(Washington, D.C.): The adage that one does not want to know what goes into the process
by
which sausages are made and laws enacted is nowhere more applicable than to the end-of-year
“goat-ropes” that produce Continuing Resolutions and omnibus appropriations measures. Even
by this standard, however, the almost entirely non-transparent, unaccountable method employed
to finish funding the federal government for Fiscal Year 1999 — a process made necessary by
President Clinton’s last-minute extortionist threat to shut the government down — is singularly
unappetizing.

Good for Defense

Because of the opaqueness of the manner in which the FY99 Omnibus Appropriations bill was
created, few — if any — know all that is in it. What is evident and particularly relevant
to the
foreign and defense matters with which the Center for Security Policy concerns itself, however, is
the more than $9 billion added by this legislation to address critical national security
shortfalls. According to press reports, these include:

• Some $2 billion to improve intelligence capabilities of
  both the human and mechanical types.
  Every passing day demonstrates the necessity for better means of penetrating, monitoring and
  neutralizing potentially hostile actors. If properly invested — particularly in a wholesale
  revitalization of old fashioned “Humint” sources and methods, href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾ the introduction of new
  generations of small, affordable and readily reconstituted space-based intelligence
  assets,⁽²⁾ and improved
  counter-intelligence and information warfare capabilities href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾ — this
  expenditure could pay handsome dividends.

• $1.9 billion to reimburse the U.S. military for the staggering costs of their
  peacekeeping
  operations in Bosnia. Unless and until such funds are replenished, the armed forces are
  obliged to take them out of other accounts, notably from those associated with long-overdue
  modernization and other procurement requirements. Even when reimbursement is
  forthcoming, however, it is usually belatedly and sometimes insufficiently. A toll is thus
  exacted — one that should be prevented in the future by establishing henceforth that a
  separate
  account should be requested and approved by Congress for peacekeeping and similar
  “contingency” operations. The Pentagon must no longer be seen as a slush fund from
  which
  these sorts of non-military/non-national security activities can be blithely underwritten.

• At least $1.1 billion for “readiness”-related spending needs. Within the
  past few weeks,
  the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Pentagon witnesses have finally acknowledged what has
  been clear for some time: The military is being “hollowed out” by the cumulative effects of
  serious shortfalls in maintenance as well as modernization programs. href=”#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾ As noted above, these
  funding shortfalls are compounded by the extraordinarily high operational tempos being
  demanded of the military (see above) and the plummeting morale and mass migration from the
  armed forces of skilled pilots and others being asked to do ever more with ever less.

• $1.1 billion is a drop in the vast bucket that has been created in this area since
  1985 — the last year of real growth in defense spending. Still, it is a welcome
  signal of change in approach which must be massively reinforced in congressional
  action on the FY2000 budget.

• $1.1. billion for remediation of the Year 2000 (Y2K) “bug” — a potential
  first-order
  catastrophe for the Defense Department, as well as for the computer-dominated society it
  exists to protect. Since the Center for Security Policy first raised a warning about this issue
  last February,⁽⁵⁾ the Pentagon’s senior management has, to
  its credit, made mitigating Y2K’s
  effects on defense activities a top priority. The additional funds provided should be used,
  among other things, to conduct realistic end-to-end system tests of aircraft
  carriers, fighter
  wings, and large ground combat units. We will not know until such tests are performed
  just
  how serious the impact of Y2K will be — and the Defense Department had better find out as
  soon as possible so as to develop triage techniques that will minimize the accompanying
  degradation in military preparedness. And

• Roughly $700 million for counter-drug operations and
  approximately $385 million to
  enhance the security of U.S. embassies. These are important national priorities and the
  Pentagon should not be obliged to pay for them out of its hide.

Accelerating Missile Defenses

Arguably most importantly, the Omnibus Appropriations bill is said to
provide nearly $1 billion
more in funding for missile defenses. Three areas where such funds are clearly needed
are:

• At least $250 million plus-up for the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air
  defense-based wide-area
  anti-missile system. Known variously as the Upper Tier or Theater Wide program, this
  “AEGIS Option” can — if allowed to be technology-paced rather than
  funding-limited could
  put effective missile defenses capable of protecting large portions of the globe to sea in short
  order. If not dumbed down for policy reasons, such systems could begin to provide a
  defense
  for the American people, as well as U.S. forces and allies overseas.

• Whatever it takes to create the sort of test program geared toward early
  deployment of the
  Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system. At present, the best
  case is that the
  Clinton Administration will continue to string this high-priority theater missile defense system
  along on a roughly one-test-per-year, go-nowhere basis. At worst, the Administration appears
  inclined to cancel it outright. Both approaches would be terrible mistakes. Instead, THAAD
  should be tested as aggressively as was the United States’ first series of ballistic missiles (which
  experienced some 17 failures before a success!) until all of the nagging — but relatively minor —
  reliability and production bugs are worked out, allowing the system can be put into the field
  where it is urgently needed as soon as possible.

• Roughly $150 million to permit the purchase of a third Arrow battery for
  Israel. By so
  doing, the United States can help America’s most important and reliable friend in the Middle
  East protect its people and potentially critical strategic assets like the seaport at Haifa and
  airfields in the Negev against the rapidly growing threat of ballistic missile attack.

The Bottom Line

Apparently, it will fall to the Congress to establish these sorts of
spending priorities for the
missile defense funds being made available by the Omnibus Appropriations bill in
subsequent
legislation and/or directive correspondence. In light of the urgent need to deploy anti-missile
defenses, this should be undertaken at the earliest possible time.

While the Congress is at it, work should be completed on a
legislative initiative left undone at
the end of this session: Adoption of the Cochran-Inouye bill (S.1873) that would make
it the
policy of the U.S. government to deploy missile defenses as soon as technologically possible. href=”#N_6_”>⁽⁶⁾
Senator Cochran has signaled his intention to move on such legislation early in the next session.
It is to be earnestly hoped that the filibuster that prevented — by a one-vote margin — the adoption
of such direction will no longer prove an impediment in the 106^th Congress and that
the House of
Representatives, whose leadership deserves considerable credit for securing the additional funding
for defense in general and missile defense in particular, will next year move a counterpart measure
as an urgent item of business.

– 30 –

1. See Center Decision Brief entitled
‘Say It Ain’t So’: Ross’ Trilateral Intelligence Gambit
Threatens U.S. Security, Interests (No. 97-D
112, 14 August 1997).

2. See Center’s Press Release entitled
Top Defense Practitioners Establish That President,
Pentagon Must Ensure That U.S. Can Exercise ‘Space Dominance’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-P_08″>No. 98-P 08, 16 January
1998).

3. See, for example, the following Casey Institute
Perspectives: Asymmetric Threat: Defector
Confirms Moscow’s Lourdes Complex in Cuba Compromised Sensitive Gulf War Battle Plane
(No. 98-C 64, 10 April 1998);
Castro’s Cuba: A Classic ‘Asymmetric’ Threat ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-C_59″>No. 98-C 59, 3
April 1998); and No Apologies To Castro: Politicized Pentagon Study Misses
Abiding Nature
Of Threat From Cuba, Promotes Wrong Response (No.
98-C 54, 30 March 1998).

4. See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Wanted: An End To The ‘Hollow’ Military — And
A ‘Feasible,’ ‘Practical’ Missile Defense (No. 98-D
167, 29 September 1998); Clinton Legacy
Watch #27: A Counterculture Assault on the U.S. Military and the National Sovereignty It
Safeguards (No. 98-D 121, 29 June 1998); and
Secretary Cohen Implicitly Confirms That
Gender Integration Conflicts With Good Military Order, Discipline and Readiness
(No. 98-D
103, 9 June 1998).

5. See the Center’s first Decision Brief on the Y2K
issue entitled Bridge To Nowhere:
Inattention To The ‘Millennium Bug’ Threatens The Nation’s Security, Economy In The 21st
Century (No. 98-C 24, 6 February
1998). See At Last, Clinton-Gore Publicly Address Year 2000 Bug
— But Continue To Lowball Problem, Duck Responsibility For It
(No. 98-C 132, 15 July 1998);
and New Theory For Clinton-Gore Silence On Y2K
Emerges As N.P.R., Gingrich Offer
Contrasting Views of the Danger (No.
98-D 106, 12 June 1998).

6. See Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency
Melts Down, 41 Democrats Continue
Filibuster of Bill to Defend America (No. 98-D
160, 9 September 1998); Shame, Shame: By
One Vote, Minority of Senators Perpetuate America’s Vulnerability To Missile
Attack (No. 98-D 84, 14 May 1999); and
Senate Should Vote To Defend America ‘As Soon As
Technologically Possible’ (No. 98-D 79, 6 May
1998).