New Mexico Congressional delegates have asked Appropriations committee leaders for $72.5 million in the Fiscal 2007 Supplemental Appropriations bill to pay for construction projects at Cannon AFB, N.M., to accommodate the shift to an Air Force Special Operations Command base, reports the Clovis News Journal. New Mexico legislators are worried that the Air Force hasn’t allocated the necessary funding soon enough to meet a planned Oct. 1 turnover to AFSOC. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) questioned Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England during a Feb. 28 budget hearing last week about $70 million USAF had earmarked for Cannon in its 2008 unfunded priorities list. England admitted that he found the $70 million “sort of a surprising number,” but he assured Domenici that between the Air Force and US Special Operations Command “there’s well over $600 million for Cannon.” England also maintained that AFSOC would “take ownership” and Cannon “will be operational on Oct. 1.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine said the U.S. needs to prepared for future conflicts in which its adversaries will be able to closely track the location of American forces and attack with autonomous systems that use artificial intelligence.
