VeteransÕ group wants more funding for MIA search
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
The Veterans of Foreign Wars is trying to launch a grass-roots campaign to increase funding for the Defense DepartmentÕs operation to account for service members who are missing in action.
The House and Senate armed services committee are already on their side, joining in criticism of a Bush administration decision to reduce funding for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, known as JPAC.
The 2006 budget for the POW-MIA program fell $3.6 million short, according to VFW officials, who said this has led to scaling back recovery and discovery operations. The 2007 budget now before Congress is $65 million short of covering planned operations, VFW officials said.
ÒIt is unconscionable that during a time when our servicemen and women are risking all to protect our freedoms, our government does not see fit to fund a program to find our prisoners of war or those missing in action,Ó said a statement by VFW executive director Robert E. Wallace.
Wallace wrote the Pentagon in May asking for more funding, a request that VFW officials said had Òfallen on deaf ears.Ó So, Wallace wrote an open letter to Congress asking for help and the association is asking veterans to contact lawmakers.
The VFW has an ally in Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on personnel, who said he was Òvery disappointedÓ to learn operations had been canceled or reduced this year because of the funding shortfall.
ÒIn the past, this subcommittee has paid particular attention to funding and manning issues in the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office,Ó McHugh said. Now he has learned there are manning and money problems with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and the Air ForceÕs Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory.
McHugh said he is committed to full funding and full manning of all organizations involved in the POW-MIA accounting. The 2007 defense authorization bill passed by the House last week includes a provision, added at McHughÕs suggestion, that requires better explanations of future funding requests and demands five-year budget estimates to show the Defense DepartmentÕs long-range intentions.
The Senate Armed Services Committee similarly included a provision in its version of the 2007 defense bill demanding better funding and recommending a possible reorganization of the operation. According to a committee report accompanying the bill, funding was supposed to be merged in 2004 but the combined amount ended up being smaller than the separate military organizations had before the merger.
For 2006, $50.4 million was needed to carry out recovery operations but the budget was just $44 million.