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r complete a competition that would be viewed as fair and objective this decision can only be viewed as helpful to boeing who as of late february were out of the tanker competition entirely on february 29 the pentagon announced it was awarding the contract to northrop grumman boeing received a reprieve in june when the government accountability office gao upheld boeing s protest of the contract award at the time gao stated that in selecting the winner the air force had made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between boeing and northrop grumman while neither today s announcement nor gao s finding actually reverses the air force s initial decision to award the contract to northrop grumman boeing lives to fight another day the delay which could easily exceed a full year will allow boeing to significantly revamp it s initial bid including developing a proposal based on a larger aircraft something boeing officials believe is critical if they are to be competitive in august boeing announced albeit likely with their fingers crossed behind their backs that they would consider withdrawing from the competition entirely if they weren t given additional time to complete revisions of their bid which would include a design based on a larger air frame northrop grumman is unlikely to stand pat on its bid now given additional time widespread media accounts over the last few weeks indicate that it too will submit a new bid using a different airframe for background on the air force s tanker competition see my fact sheet gao review of the air force tanker contract award to northrop grumman posted by christopher hellman at 8 19 pm no comments labels defense spending hellman military spending pentagon spending weapons systems tuesday october 23 2007 white house war funding request highlights skyrocketing pentagon spending yesterday the bush administration announced that it needs an additional 42 billion to fund the wars in iraq and afghanistan this year together with the more than 140 billion that the white house has already requested for this year s military operations and the 481 billion requested to fund the pentagon s regular annual budget projected u s military spending for fiscal year 2008 which began on october 1 will exceed 670 billion on national public radio s morning edition today i noted that at that level we re spending more than the cold war average at this point and in terms of the high point of the cold war yes we re exceeding that listen to npr s story bush wants 46 billion more for iraq afghanistan by comparison that 670 billion which doesn t include roughly 16 billion that the pentagon spends on the nuclear weapons related activities of the department of energy puts u s annual defense spending at its second highest point historically exceeded only by defense budgets during world war ii in addition to being higher than at any other time since world war ii current annual defense spending is 14 above the height of the korean war is 33 above the height of the vietnam war is 25 above the height of the reagan era buildup is 76 above the cold war average in fact since the september 11 2001 attacks the annual defense budget not including the costs of military operations in iraq and afghanistan has gone up 34 including war costs defense spending has gone up 86 since 2001 posted by christopher hellman at 12 30 pm 3 comments labels defense spending hellman military spending pentagon spending monday october 1 2007 annual u s security spending 1 trillion today marks the beginning of the new fiscal year and closes the books on fiscal year 2007 a year when the united states spent nearly 1 trillion on security related matters back in february 2006 the bush administration requested and congress later approved roughly 463 billion for the military but this figure didn t include almost 175 billion appropriated for the pentagon in fy 2007 to cover the costs of military operations in iraq and afghanistan and that s just the tip of the iceberg in addition to the almost 650 billion spent by the military on u s security a new analysis i ve done for the center for arms control and non proliferation details over 350 billion in other federal security spending security spending outside the defense budget ranges from the small 421 million for non proliferation antiterrorism demining and related activities in the foreign operations budget to the very large nearly 100 billion for interest on the national debt attributable to past pentagon spending it includes some funding that is clearly related to u s national security such as veterans benefits 73 billion and homeland security 43 billion and some spending like retirement benefits for former pentagon civilian employees 22 4 billion that s less clearly connected it also includes intelligence funding foreign military assistance and the military space program and even this figure is incomplete it doesn t include for instance pay and benefits for non dod civilian federal employees working on security issues for the department of homeland security state department or department of justice or treasury nor does it include the costs of past debt accrued paying veterans benefits retirees pensions etc it doesn t include the majority of the state department s operating budget although one must assume that some of our government s diplomatic initiatives are directed at promoting u s security former senator everett dirksen is often credited with saying regarding federal spending that a billion here and a billion there and soon you re talking real money in a 2 8 trillion annual federal budget 1 trillion in security spending is real money posted by christopher hellman at 12 16 pm no comments labels defense spending hellman military spending pentagon spending monday september 17 2007 pentagon dhs can t pass audits so what else is new a recent associated press story reports that neither the department of defense nor the department of homeland security can pass a financial audit sadly this is old news especially for the pentagon it s not too surprising that dhs s books are a mess first it s a new federal agency created by congress in 2002 second homeland security funding has increased dramatically since the september 11 attacks growing from 16 billion in 2000 to a request of 61 billion for fiscal year 2008 which begins on oct 1 and though the department s budget is only about half of this total 30 billion in fy 08 the 35 billion figure in the ap article is inaccurate dhs has to coordinate the homeland security related activities of some forty other federal agencies yet as the ap story points out dhs did pass its first audit in 2003 albeit with a number of disclaimers but they ve failed every audit since the situation at the defense department is much worse according to the government accountability office gao the federal government s auditing branch the pentagon has never successfully completed an audit and this is despite the fact that during the 1990 s congress passed several pieces of legislation requiring the defense department to make the changes in its accounting practices necessary to do so since 1999 gao has regularly produced and updated its high risk series which identif ies federal programs and operations that in some cases are high risk due to their greater vulnerabilities to fraud waste abuse and mismanagement of the 26 federal programs identified as high risk in gao s most recent jan 2007 review seven are related to the department of defense one was related to dhs although several others are connected to u s homeland security such as protecting critical technologies related to u s security and federal oversight of food safety ironically very few federal agencies or programs are identified by name in the high risk series in addition to dod and dhs you will find the faa department of energy nasa the irs and medicaid and medicare not social security not transportation not agriculture not education why is this a problem because the pentagon and dhs which the gao identify as high risk are also the fastest growing areas of federal spending outside of social security funding for homeland security has quadrupled since sept 11 while the annual defense budget has grown by almost forty percent more than 120 billion not including the 180 billion plus we spend on the wars in iraq and afghanistan as i said when i first wrote on this issue back in march 2000 that a federal agency as large and diverse as the department of defense cannot account for each and every transaction is no surprise what is disturbing is the magnitude and the duration of the problem the federal financial management act of 1994 and additional laws passed in 1996 require the defense department to submit audited financial statements each year neither the defense department nor any of the individual services have done so as of yet and as the defense department inspector general s report notes dod does not expect to have systems necessary to meet these new requirements before the year 2003 apparently despite congress s concerns the situation pentagon is unchanged seven years later and dhs is following this dubious example at a time of ballooning deficits where every dollar spent on our security needs to count there s no accounting for what our government is doing posted by christopher hellman at 9 44 am 1 comment labels defense spending hellman military spending pentagon spending monday september 10 2007 budgeting for war while attention focuses on general petraeus s long awaited report on iraq congress continues to deal with thorny defense spending issues with the attention of the media and most of the country focused on the report on iraq being delivered to congress this week by gen david petraeus and amb ryan crocker the senate will also be taking up the pentagon s annual funding legislation it does so with a number of competing forces at work the democrats desire to continue using iraq to make political points the unwillingness of members of congress to appear not to be supporting u s troops and inability of the opponents of the iraq war on capitol hill to round up enough bi partisan support to force the issue with the bush administration on wednesday the senate appropriations committee will consider the 2008 defense appropriations bill which funds the pentagon s annual basic operations the house has already passed its version of this legislation h r 3222 which includes 460 billion for the department of defense 3 5 billion below the bush administration s request and nearly 40 billion above current levels like the house the senate is not planning to include any additional funding to support combat operations in iraq and afghanistan in this legislation traditionally wars are funded outside the normal annual appropriations process this is because the federal budget process which can take well over two years to enact funding for a single year is simply too cumbersome to respond to unanticipated emergency spending needs such as disaster assistance and wars but last year congress required the administration to include the costs of military operations in iraq and afghanistan as part of their annual budget request arguing that after five years in afghanistan and three years in iraq the pentagon should have at least some idea of the costs of these operations the request for war related costs for fiscal year 2008 which begins on october 1 was estimated by the white house back in february at roughly 142 billion the decision by senate defense appropriations subcommittee chairman daniel inouye d hi to follow the example set by his house counterpart rep john murtha d pa and separate out iraq funding from the dod base budget spending bill means the appropriations bill should be able to move smoothly through congress possibly before the end of the fiscal year on september 30 meanwhile the iraq debate will be focused on the additional supplemental funding bill which sen inouye and rep murtha believe will begin moving in mid october after current funding legislation expires but this scenario means that congress will confront a similar situation to the one in may with the military complaining it is running short of war fighting funds and the white house accusing the democratic leadership of playing politics with american lives congress will certainly include in the annual defense bill a limited amount of transfer authority for the defense department which permits the pentagon with congressional approval to transfer funds from its annual base budget to pay for actual combat operations the house bill includes 3 2 billion in general transfer authority and the senate version will undoubtedly include similar authority although the final amount that will actually be available to the pentagon remains to be seen it is unlikely however that whatever amount of transfer authority approved by congress will be sufficient a july report by the independent congressional research service put the current monthly costs for the wars in iraq and afghanistan known as the burn rate at 12 billion roughly 10 billion per month for iraq and 2 billion for afghanistan at this rate the military will soon find themselves short of money this is especially true given recent press accounts that indicate that the white house will be seeking even more money for war related costs as much as 50 billion above the 142 billion already identified what is more likely is that congress will enact one or more short term funding packages for iraq this option could be very attractive to the democratic leadership first it will help inoculate congress from criticism for abandoning american troops second it will continue to keep iraq on the front burner of national politics well into the 2008 campaign season and third any spending approved by congress will certainly be linked to continued reporting on the military and political situation in iraq which the war s opponents hope will help increase congressional opposition to the war the wild card in the deck president bush has already indicated he will veto a number of the annual appropriations bills before congress which fund other federal agencies because they exceed the budget limits laid out in the white house s 2008 budget request democrats may gamble that tying one or more of these domestic spending packages to the annual defense bill may force the president to withhold his veto a gamble that could certainly backfire posted by christopher hellman at 10 08 am 2 comments labels defense spending hellman military spending pentagon spending monday july 16 2007 the mrap a case study in military planning and congressional response improvised explosive devises ieds are the 1 killers of u s military personnel in iraq suddenly acquiring vast numbers of mine resistant ambush protected vehicles mraps is at the top of the military s to do list they should have seen it coming that they didn t or worse that t...