The Defense Department should have enough money to fund operations in Iraq through this fiscal year and into FY-15, even if Congress drags its feet passing the FY-15 defense appropriations act, analysts say.
According to Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby, the United States has spent an average of $7.5 million a day on operations in Iraq since June 16. The estimated price tag of about $555 million is funded by DOD's overseas contingency operations budget for FY-14, Kirby said during an Aug. 29 press briefing.
Looking into the future, with a possible expansion of attacks in Iraq and into Syria, analysts think DOD will be adequately funded for continued or increased operations by ad hoc funds like OCO over the next year. The most pressing threat DOD faces is the possibility that Congress is unable to pass the defense appropriations act before the fiscal year ends. However, Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, finds that option unlikely.
"It's more likely that the potential increase in operations and expenditures in Iraq will make it easier to get this year's budget bills done and push the defense budget on balance upward," he said.
In case Congress does not pass the bill until after October, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments senior fellow, Todd Harrison said Congress could just pass a continuing resolution. The resolution would prorate DOD's OCO funding for however long the resolution lasts.
Going into FY-15, DOD has requested about $60 billion in OCO funding, which is supposed to fund troops in Afghanistan. However, according to O'Hanlon, "there is a lot of padding in there." He said the U.S. is planning on spending about $20 billion in Afghanistan for FY-15. In a worst case scenario, O'Hanlon said, the U.S. could end up spending $10 to $15 billion in Iraq.
"My expectation is we might wind up considering some substantially greater involvement, obviously far short of anything like we did before," he said. "But, conceivably in the several thousand [troops] category if we wind up sending mentors, security force assistant teams in the field, special operators for a period of time, intelligence personnel . . . I could very easily imagine that we wind up in the range of let's say five to ten thousand [troops] in Iraq. That's probably the upper end of what President Obama would consider, but it shouldn't be excluded."
Regardless, the range of cost would still be well within the boundaries of the OCO budget, even though in an Aug. 21 press briefing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said OCO funding may have to be adjusted due to the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It is possible Congress will also authorized $5 billion for a counterterrorism fund that could be used as well, though lawmakers have yet to appropriate money into the fund.
It was made clear by both experts that the operations in Iraq will have no effect on the possible triggering of sequester in the next year, since none of the funds are taken from the base budget.
"Right now, in Iraq and elsewhere around the world, we've got resources sufficient to the military tasks that we're accomplishing," Kirby said during the press briefing.
"We've got a funding request up on the Hill that meets the BCA, the Budget Control Act, limits, but -- and, you know, we've got sort of a stay of execution for '14 and '15. But beyond that, sequestration come '16 will revert and, you know, become again the law of the land, and that's a very real concern going forward."