© beforeitsnews.comCounterterrorism drill in progress.
"[Y]ou're constantly shaping a budget to assure that resources match the mission and the mission and the resources match the threat," Hagel said during a briefing at the Pentagon.
"[Y]ou're shifting [money] all the time on what you think is going to be required," Hagel said. "We've had to move assets over the last couple of months...to accomplish what we accomplished in Iraq. That costs money, that takes certain monies out of certain funds. So it's a constant, fluid process as you plan for these."
Since Aug. 8, US forces have conducted 89 airstrikes against Islamic State militants, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the briefing.
Dempsey said US forces have delivered 636 bundles of food, water and medical supplies to Iraqis. As well, manned and unmanned military aircraft are flying more than 60 intelligence missions each day. "I think we're fine for fiscal year '14 and we'll have to continue to gather the data and see what it does in '15," Dempsey said.
© abcnews.go.comU.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
The overall budget proposal includes a request for $5 billion - $4 billion in DoD's OCO request and $1 billion in the State Department's war budget - for a counterterrorism account that could be used for operations, such as the campaign against militants in Iraq, experts say.
"In the future, I would think this is exactly the kind of operation that should be funded out of the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund included in the FY15 OCO request," Todd Harrison, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said this month.
The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. If Congress does not pass a 2015 spending plan by then, the government would likely be funded through a continuing resolution, which would limit funding at 2014 levels.
Comment: The Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, requested by Obama, May 2014, is a network of partnerships from S. Asia to the Sahel. Funding of $5B allows the U.S. to train, build capacity, facilitate partner countries on the front lines, add flex to missions, includes training security forces in Yemen on offensive against al-Qaida, peacekeep force in Somalia, work with EU allies for security force and border patrol in Libya, French operations in Mali, Syrian crisis, push back against extremists, support Jordan and Lebanon, work with Turkey and Iraq with refugees and confront terrorists.
This seems like a lot of speculative spending on perhaps unjustified, unauthorized and unequal "partnerships." What this really may be is a way to circumvent spending caps imposed by Congress on the base military budget. With draw downs in Afghanistan and other such limiting activity, it is a question of how much longer the Pentagon will have access to the OCO accounts (Overseas Contingency Operations) and the inherent DOD reliance on them. The Counterterrorism Fund is a less obvious way to disguise the U.S. hand in foreign affairs and maintain military spending. Washington has created a military industrial complex that needs constant feeding, thereby its existence has become its excuse.