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KMT willing to review arms plan

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday said it was willing to discuss the stymied arms procurement plan after the government agreed to earmark some of the purchase items for the regular budget.

"Our previous stance on the matter was that we were against buying the weaponry at such high prices and we were against earmarking the budget as a special budget," said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), who is also an executive director of the KMT's Central Policy Committee.

Tseng said that as the Executive Yuan has now agreed to reallocate NT$7 billion (US$218 million) of the special budget to the regular annual budget, his caucus is willing to look at the defense ministry's new plan.

The reallocated amount represents 1.5 percent of the NT$480 billion special budget the government has proposed.

According to the ministry's plan, NT$350 million of that reallocated amount would be contributed by the Cabinet, with the remainder coming from the Ministry of National Defense's regular budget.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the Ministry of National Defense is planning to pay for one of the three proposed items from normal budgets, with the other two being funded by the special budget.

He, however, refused to reveal which item would be earmarked as part of the regular budget.

Many speculate that the Patriot missiles are the most likely item to be shifted.

The proposed package includes eight diesel-electric submarines, 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and three PAC-3 Patriot anti-missile batteries.

Calling the pan-blue lawmakers who made the proposal to fund part of the arms budget from the regular budget "stupid," People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), who is a member of the legislature's National Defense Committee, said that they are falling into a snare deployed by the DPP.

The problem is not whether the arms budget is earmarked as a regular or special budget, Lin said, because it is all taxpayers' money.

"What concerns us is whether those weapons serve the armed forces' combat requirements, whether they are too pricey, whether the quantity is too great, whether we will get any technological know-how from the US to offset such an expensive outlay, and most importantly, whether the plan will usher in a military contest across the Strait," he said.

Likening the pan-blue camp's strategy for the arms procurement plan combat, Lin said that a mistaken change of plan in the middle of warfare is bound to have a radical impact on the outcome of the war.

"They failed to carefully study the matter before rushing to make the proposition, and now have ended up shooting themselves in the foot," he said.

Lin also said that when he visited KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last week to discuss the arms procurement plan, Ma had acknowledged his concerns about the plan.
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