Unraveling Navys Decision on USS Truman

March 2 | Posted by mrossol | American Thought, US Debt

Hmmm. More political gamesmanship?
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Little in the polarized debate over the spending cuts that took effect Friday has engendered the level of rancor as did the U.S. Navy’s decision to delay deploying an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

Some Republicans questioned whether the Obama administration was playing politics with America’s national security. Others have asked if the Navy could have cut the more than $300 million from other programs. Still others wondered whether the Pentagon was using budget constraints as cover to implement a broader policy shift.

The answers are as tangled as Washington’s attempts to free itself from the political impasse that triggered the controversial Navy decision.

For instance, military officials freely admit they could have found ways to save money other than keeping the USS Harry S. Truman docked in Virginia—though it isn’t nearly that simple, of course.

The painful spending cuts called the sequester are finally here. WSJ’s Julian E. Barnes and Colleen McCain Nelson discuss the real effects – including military preparedness – as well as the significant political risk for President Obama and Republican lawmakers.

The Navy’s aircraft-carrier problem stretches back more than two years, when military leaders responsible for the Middle East and South Asia asked the Pentagon to assign two aircraft carriers to operations in the Persian Gulf to help support the military surge under way at the time in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department agreed to the request. But the decision at the end of 2010 came without additional funding, military officials said, putting a strain on the Navy budget.

In 2011, the Budget Control Act imposed $487 billion in Defense Department cuts over the next decade.

Fiscal constraints tightened with Washington’s failure to pass a fiscal 2013 budget, imposing additional restrictions on how the Pentagon, along with the rest of the federal government, can spend its money.

The arrival of across-the-board spending cuts under sequestration created a fourth budget squeeze and prompted the Navy to rethink how it used its fleet of 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The conclusion: Sending the Truman to the Gulf as planned would have exerted unacceptable strains on the Pentagon. Barring a budget deal, the Navy could have been prevented from retaining a carrier presence in the region through the end of this year.

Military officials concluded that, with the war in Afghanistan winding down, they would be better off to free up the fleet by ending the commitment to two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. The more than $300 million in savings could be used to continue to prepare, equip and train, allowing the Navy to keep one carrier in the Gulf through 2014.

California Rep. Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon, the head of the Armed Services Committee, tells WSJ’s Jerry Seib he is “very concerned” about how the defense portion of the sequester cuts will affect American troops.

“There are a lot of things that go into that decision: Some of it is money, some of it is availability of ships, some of it is threat,” said one military official. “As you’re going through the ledger books, it’s obvious that there was an ability where we could garner savings and readiness.”

Keeping the Truman in port, where it is prepared to respond to unexpected problems, raised questions among some critics who suggested that the decision was intended to put pressure on Republicans to capitulate in negotiations with President Barack Obama.

“I don’t believe there is internal Pentagon politics at play, but I am skeptical of the decision,” said Rep. Randy Forbes, (R., Va.), who chairs the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Pentagon officials said the Truman delay was approved by then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in consultation with the Navy. The Navy’s position was backed by Gary Roughead, a retired admiral who served as chief of naval operations when the military first ramped up its carrier presence in the Gulf. “They had to make some very, very hard decisions, and none of the solutions are good, but you just have to make the best of what you have,” he said.

Richard Danzig, who served as secretary of the Navy under President Bill Clinton, agreed. “They had a pretty clear choice: Have a carrier through the summer and none in the fall, or have one now and one through next year,” he said. “I don’t regard that as political grandstanding in the least.”

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed demands on the carrier fleet that are manifesting themselves in various ways. Last fall, deployment of the USS Nimitz was delayed by unexpected repairs, creating unplanned scheduling problems.

“Even without sequestration, I still think we would have had a carrier problem,” said an aide to Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla). “Due to unforeseen events and the high deployment tempo of the carrier fleet, the cycle for a few very critical carriers has gone askew and put additional strain on the carrier fleet.”

For the most part, the scrutiny of the Truman decision has overlooked the larger policy shift that ended the commitment to keep two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

That issue is expected to come up next week when Marine Gen. James Mattis, the head of U.S. Central Command, appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Is there some kind of assessment on Iran or the Gulf that provides a rationale or a justification for that decision?” asked one Senate aide. “Is it being driven by the budget—or by a strategic decision?”

Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared March 2, 2013, on page A4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Unraveling Navy’s Decision on USS Truman.Unraveling Navys Decision on USS Truman Amid Sequester – WSJ.com.

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