The Senate Appropriations Committee proposes adding nearly $15 billion to the Administration’s request for emergency supplemental funding for the war on terror and hurricane recovery. The measure includes almost $228 million to go toward purchase of seven additional C-17 airlifters for the Air Force. Service leaders have testified that the increased use of the new airlifters in the war has played havoc with wear-out estimates, and they need seven additional to maintain the Pentagon’s benchmark 180 C-17s. (The Air Force made the additional C-17s a top unfunded requirement for 2007.) Lawmakers in both the Senate and House support buying more C-17s, however House appropriators did not include such in their version of the supplemental, which totals about $92 billion. The Senate appropriators must defend their bill before the full Senate this week, and, if it survives, face a compromise battle with the House.
Pentagon officials overseeing homeland counter-drone strategy told lawmakers that even with preliminary moves to bolster U.S. base defenses, the military still lacks the capability to comprehensively identify, track, and engage hostile drones like those that breached the airspace of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 days in December…