RW Lawmakers And The EFV: Marines define future role amid budget cuts

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Marines define future role amid budget cuts
(AP) – 17 hours ago

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A faster, high-tech seafaring tank for U.S. Marines has hit countless setbacks and cost overruns during the past two decades, and now it is one of the pricier items on the Defense Department's budget-cutting list.

Even the Marine Corps' top brass agrees the estimated $12 billion program has to go. But that doesn't mean the debate is over.

A group of Republican lawmakers is questioning the Marine Corps leadership's sudden change of heart over the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Generals have long said the amphibious tank under development had come to symbolize the force's very identity and represented the future of the Marine Corps, which has been relegated largely to landlocked wars over the past decade.

The legislators want Marine Corps leaders to explain the new position they took last month in backing Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he announced that the EFV should be cut.

Republicans fighting to save the EFV say they want to know why generals spent 20 years pushing for the amphibious war machine only to turn around over a span of months and say it has become too costly.