The Corps of Engineers’ maintenance of the nation’s inland waterways is a competitive advantage and must be sufficiently funded, Vicksburg’s Brig. Gen. Robert Crear said.

Crear, the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi Valley Division and a Vicksburg native, made his comments as guest speaker at a Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce luncheon Friday.

“The Corps is certainly responsible for the nation’s infrastructure, but right now that’s pretty troubling from my standpoint,” Crear said.

The budget President Bush has proposed for the coming fiscal year would reduce funding for the Corps’s civil works program. It includes a proposed cut of about 5.7 percent to the amount of money the MVD was allocated the previous year, about $954 million. Congress may modify the president’s budget before a budget is passed into law.

Crear said he planned to travel to Washington Monday to report to Congress on the state of projects affecting inland waterways in the division, many of which he said are about 30 years old and in need of upgrading.

“Right now they are in pretty bad shape, really bad shape,” Crear said of Corps assets like locks and dams that allow commercial vessels to navigate the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

“One of my responsibilities is to report to (Congress) so they can set priorities to ensure that we don’t have a failure,” Crear said. “Because if we have a failure in any of those projects, those locks and dams that keep commerce flowing, it will affect the entire U.S. if not the world.”

Crear commented on a major benefit the Corps provides the nation’s economy.

“Keeping the inland waterway system open and operating, now, that makes the U.S. the most powerful country in the world,” he said. The general added that “there are many countries out there now that can outproduce us,” but none that can use its waterways to ship its goods internationally as quickly or as cheaply as the U.S.

The division’s territory, 370,000 square miles, encompasses the entire Mississippi River and all or parts of 12 states.

Crear began his talk, to an audience of about 40 people, by outlining the route he took to return to his hometown as commander of the division, one of nine in the Corps.

After leaving Vicksburg in 2001, Crear and his wife, Reatha, were stationed in Washington, D.C., where he served as a chief of staff, and Dallas, Texas, where he commanded the Corps’ Southwestern Division.

During the family’s time in Dallas, Crear was sent to Iraq as commander of Task Force Restore Iraqi Oil. The work that task force did continues to pay off for Iraqis in the revenue from oil exports. From Feb. 28 through Sunday, Iraq produced an average of 2.1 million barrels of oil a day, Department of Defense information says.

Crear called Vicksburg an “engineering mecca,” noting that in addition to the division headquarters the city is the headquarters location for the Corps’ Vicksburg District and Engineer Research and Development Center as well as the U.S. Army Reserve’s 412th Engineer Command and the Mississippi National Guard’s 168th Engineer Group.

“We have a common thread because we’re all engineers,” Crear said, adding that people from all five organizations have met in Iraq and Afghanistan during reconstruction operations in the global war on terrorism.

Crear also noted a few of the Corps’ direct benefits to Vicksburg, including: