The Trump administration has sparked a full-blown “financial crisis” within the U.S. Navy after pillaging coffers earmarked for service member payrolls, The Guardian reported after speaking with U.S. Navy officials and reviewing new documents.
Dollars earmarked for U.S. Navy payrolls were being moved, according to The Guardian, to cover costs associated with President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran, a conflict that has drained the United States’ supply of munitions stockpiles. A Pentagon memo reviewed by the outlet warns of “shortfalls in payroll” accounts for U.S. service members due to Pentagon “raiding.”
“The piggy bank is broken,” said Harlan Ullman, a retired U.S. Navy officer and military academic, speaking with The Guardian.
Another U.S. Navy official who spoke with The Guardian on the condition of anonymity revealed the “imaginative” workarounds being employed to circumvent payroll shortfalls.
“The money for payroll was robbed to pay for overseas contingencies and is being backfilled by money that hasn’t been spent,” the U.S. Navy official said. “They are backfilling payroll so we get enough money in our paycheck.”
While a U.S. Navy spokesperson dismissed reports that U.S. Navy payrolls were at risk of falling short, the “cash shortage” within the branch was “no secret,” The Guardian reported.
“They’re just not speaking publicly about it,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“And I suspect that is a deliberate decision of the civilian leaders in the Pentagon, starting at secretary, that this is for political reasons, that they don’t want to look like they’re damaging future military readiness over a war that is becoming increasingly a political liability.”
One former military officer who now works for a U.S. Navy contracting company and was “briefed on the shortfalls” was far more bleak in his assessment.
“They’re f-----,” the former officer said, speaking with The Guardian on the condition of anonymity. “They shot all their weapons; they trashed all their ships; they ran out of their money.”