Navy says tight budget, stress on fleet don’t excuse crashes

WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. Navy officer told a congressional oversight panel Thursday that the hectic pace of military operations and a constrained military budget don’t excuse two warship accidents in the Pacific region that killed 17 American sailors and led the sea-going service to order a broad investigation into its performance and readiness.

“No matter how tough our operating environment, or how strained our budget, we shouldn’t be and cannot be colliding with other ships and running aground,” Adm. William Moran, the vice chief of naval operations, told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “That is not about resourcing; it is about safety and it is about leadership at sea.”

Moran said the Navy is “shocked” by the collisions involving the USS John S. McCain in August the USS Fitzgerald in June. But he also used the hearing to urge Congress to end the practice of providing defense budgets by way of stopgap spending measures. The stopgap bills have been used frequently over the last eight years and lock the Pentagon’s budget in at last year’s level, which bars military services from starting new programs or ending old ones. That forces the services to move money from their weapons modernization and training accounts to pay for current missions.

The shortfalls sparked a discussion about whether the Navy needs to refuse additional missions until the force is better stabilized.