NGAUS Head Knocks Senior Pentagon Leaders On Army Budget Battle

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/02/ngaus-head-knocks-senior-pentagon-leaders-on-army-budget-battle/



An Alabama National Guard private stands watch after a devastating 2011 tornado.

NGAUS Head Knocks Senior Pentagon Leaders On Army Budget Battle
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on February 10, 2014 at 4:31 PM

CAPITOL HILL: When the armed services come here to make their case to Congress, the Army tends to be the elephant: huge, grey, and kind of clumsy. But this year, as the regular Army heads into what will likely be a bitter battle over fiscal 2015 funding with the Army National Guard, the service’s leadership is showing some style and unaccustomed savvy — according to no less an authority than its chief opponent, the powerful National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS).

Two years ago, the Guard association took on the Air Force and won most of the battles over cuts to the Air National Guard. But “this one may be worse,” said Gus Hargett, the retired Tennessee Guard two-star who’s CEO of NGAUS. “I think the Army learned from the mistakes the Air Force made, and that they will be – let me phrase this the right way — a worthy adversary.” (While Hargett focused mostly on Odierno, some of us think Army Secretary John McHugh, a canny long-time defense lawmaker, has helped the service look a bit more nimble.)

“They have done an excellent job of educating people on the Hill” about the Army’s case for cutting the National Guard by 35,000, Hargett told me in an exclusive 75-minute interview at NGAUS’s Capitol Hill headquarters last week. “I think that’s the difference [from] where we were with the Air Force,” which shot itself in the foot by keeping its 2013 planning secret, he said. “A lot of people were shocked at the Air Force budget when it got to the Hill. I don’t think there’s anybody on the Hill that will be shocked at the Army budget.”

~snip~

While anything’s possible before the final budget is released in early March, Hargett seems grimly resigned to the Guard having lost what had looked like a major battle inside the Pentagon — and it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see he holds Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel responsible.