Pentagon criticized for opposing troop combat pay raise

WASHINGTON -- Presidential contenders and congressional Democrats criticized the Pentagon on Thursday for opposing legislation that would extend an increase in combat pay for troops in Iraq and other war zones.

"If it's part of a cruel game of Washington budgeting, it's an abuse of our soldiers," one White House hopeful, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, said while campaigning in Iowa.

"If it's not, and the Bush administration is really considering cutting the pay of the men and women they asked to serve, then it's a betrayal of our troops," he added.

Pentagon officials said the criticism was off-base and that under no circumstances would troops in Iraq and Afghanistan be paid less.

But the Pentagon's position was called disgraceful by a second presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

"The Bush administration's decision to cut the pay of our troops in Iraq is unconscionable," he said. "It's bad enough that President Bush left our troops underprepared to win the peace in Iraq. Now the commander in chief is about to add insult to injuries by commandeering the imminent danger pay increase that Congress approved earlier this year."

The Pentagon's personnel chief, David Chu, told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference that the outrage was misguided. While it is true, he said, that the Pentagon favors allowing the extra combat pay allowances to expire in September, it will ensure that overall compensation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stable by giving them other forms of pay raises.

"I would just like to very quickly put to rest what I understand has been a burgeoning rumor that somehow we are going to reduce compensation for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan," Chu said. "That is not true. We are not going to reduce that compensation."

Last spring Congress approved a temporary increase in "imminent danger pay," from $150 a month to $225 a month for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also was an increase from $100 a month to $250 a month in allowances that compensate troops away from their families because of war.

Those increases will expire when the budget year ends Sept. 30, unless Congress votes to extend the raises in the 2004 budget.

The Senate and House have proposed different versions of an extension. The House would limit the increases to those troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones, but not troops supporting those war efforts from bases outside the combat zone. The Senate provision makes no such distinction in assignment locations.

In a July 9 "appeal" to the Senate and House spelling out its position on provisions of the 2004 defense authorization bill, the Pentagon urged that both the Senate and House provisions be dropped.

The Pentagon said it opposed the House version because it would exclude troops supporting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are serving outside the combat zones. It said it opposed the Senate version because the Defense Department "has not budgeted for these increases."

Chu said the Pentagon has legal authority now to increase other elements of troops' total compensation package, so those in Iraq and Afghanistan can maintain current pay levels even if the extra combat pay and family separation pay expire in September. He said the Pentagon has not decided which compensation powers it will use to make sure pay is held steady.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., joining in the criticism, asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to reconsider the matter.

"This sends the wrong message to our soldiers and families," Ruppersberger wrote the Pentagon chief. "It says to them the Pentagon does not care about their well-being. It suggests that their efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer dangerous."