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Coast Guard commandant calls for more ships

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Adm. Robert Papp is talking about more ships for the Coast Guard’s aging fleet, as he prepares to deliver the annual state of the Coast Guard address.

The Coast Guard’s commandant said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press that he wants many more new ships and he wants them as soon as possible.

“We have grown the Coast Guard since Sept. 11, 2001,” noting that the service has added 6,000 military personnel in the last decade.

As he speaks Thursday on Coast Guard Island in Alameda, Calif., the service’s three newest ships will serve as a $2 billion backdrop.

His aide, commander Glynn Smith, said the presence of the Bertholf, Stratton and Waesche is not coincidental.

Papp said he will fight to maintain the Coast Guard’s annual budget of a little more than $10 billion.

“We have taken on a lot more responsibility since Sept. 11,” he said.

“You have this vast middle area of the oceans where you have to keep a persistent presence,” Papp said. “The problem is that most of the ships we have doing this now are more than 40 years old.”

Papp said the U.S. Navy generally mothballs its ships after 25 years.

“You cannot patrol without having substantial ships,” Papp said. “We need new ships.”

Papp believes the Arctic region is the most important emerging maritime frontier that he believes vital the U.S. economy and national security. Melting polar ice is opening year-round shipping lanes for the first time and many nations are rushing to the region to exploit the new development. The Coast Guard has a single ice breaker operating in the region year-round.

Papp said that he has 40 “major” ships under his command and the vast majority of them were built during the Vietnam War.

“They’re falling apart,” said Papp, his forehead smeared with ash from his Ash Wednesday visit to nearby St. Joseph’s Church.

Papp has made overhauling the aging fleet a priority since his appointment to oversee a service comprised of 42,000 active duty military and 8,000 civilian workers. He says that’s a challenge given ever tighter annual budgets to meet always growing mandates since Sept. 11, 2001.

In the interview, the Coast Guard commandant said the service has myriad duties involving national security, including inspecting foreign cargo ships bounds for the United States, intercepting drug runners, gun smugglers and other dangerous vessel thought to be a threat to national security. The Coast Guard is also still responsible for rescuing boats in distress, policing domestic waterways and enforcing regulations.

“Everybody wants us to do something,” Papp said.

Unlike the other military branches, which answer to the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard belongs to the Department of Homeland Security. It’s 2012 budget is a little more than $10 billion, with about $1.2 billion for acquisitions of new vessels. Papp said the Coast Guard needs twice the annual acquisition budget — some $2 billion a year — to update the fleet.

Papp said the Coast Guard’s new duties since the Sept. 11 attacks include patrolling what he terms the “middle layer” of the world’s oceans where national security threats need to be stopped hundreds and thousands of miles from the country’s shores.

Papp said protecting the country’s ports now start at foreign ports that trade with the United States.

“You don’t want the threat arriving at your ports,” Papp said.