Pentagon undecided on funding border wall

ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT: Acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he had not yet determined whether a border wall with Mexico was a military necessity or how much Pentagon money would be used. President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the US-Mexico border without congressional approval. A US defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Shanahan was likely to approve the $3.6 billion being redirected from the military construction budget. By declaring a national emergency, Trump can use certain Department of Defence funding to build the wall.

According to the law, the defence secretary has to decide whether the wall is militarily necessary before money from the military construction budget can be used. “We always anticipated that this would create a lot of attention and since moneys potentially could be redirected, you can imagine the concern this generates,” Shanahan told reporters travelling back with him from his trip to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe. “Very deliberately, we have not made any decisions, we have identified the steps we would take to make those decisions,” Shanahan said.

He added that military planners had done the initial analysis and he would start reviewing it soon. Officials have said that the administration had found nearly $7 billion to reallocate to the wall, including about $3.6 billion from the military construction budget and $2.5 billion from a Defence Department drug interdiction fund. The US defence official said Shanahan would meet with the service secretaries in the coming days to pick which specific projects the money should come from. — Reuters