PUSHBACK BEGINS ON PENTAGON CUTS

That was quick. It’s been just a few days since the Pentagon put out a plan for the most teeny-​​tiny of bud­get trims. (You can read the doc­u­ment for your­self here.) And already, Congress is mak­ing noise about revers­ing the cuts. Congress Daily has the scoop:

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-​​Va., is expected to scru­ti­nize any Navy pro­posal to reduce its air­craft car­rier force to 11 and decom­mis­sion the USS John F. Kennedy, accord­ing to a spokesman.
Although Warner has not com­mented on spe­cific details of the forth­com­ing fis­cal 2006 defense bud­get, the chair­man “remains con­vinced of the impor­tance of carrier-​​based air power to America’s efforts against ter­ror­ists who train in remote areas of the world,” the spokesman said in a state­ment Monday. “It took five car­ri­ers to win in Afghanistan — and he will keep that in mind as he reviews the department’s bud­get,” which is expected to be sub­mit­ted to law­mak­ers Feb. 7.
The spokesman said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Warner last week to inform him of the broad out­lines of this year’s Pentagon bud­get, which is still being for­mu­lated.
“It is clear that the Department of Defense will not be exempt from the over­all bud­get tight­en­ing that the admin­is­tra­tion intends to put for­ward this year,” the spokesman said, adding that Warner “believes that it is fair for the depart­ment to play a role in the over­all bud­getary dis­ci­pline this year, as long as the reduc­tions are con­sis­tent with pre­serv­ing our national secu­rity and mil­i­tary readi­ness in the war on ter­ror.“
Media reports of the Kennedy’s retire­ment last week imme­di­ately sparked oppo­si­tion from Florida law­mak­ers. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-​​Fla., last week said the Pentagon’s pro­posal is “short-​​sighted, short-​​term think­ing, and long on wrong-​​headedness.” Crenshaw said remov­ing a car­rier from com­mis­sion “is not like flip­ping a switch. She can’t come back on in a moment’s notice should we need her des­per­ately.“
Crenshaw said he sent a let­ter to President Bush express­ing his con­cern about the pro­posed cut in the car­rier fleet. “I’m going to do every­thing in my power to con­vince the pres­i­dent that our national secu­rity demands at least 12 car­ri­ers, if not more,” he said.

THERE’S MORE: Also, it’s inter­est­ing to note that Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman stand to take the biggest hits in the pro­posed Pentagon roll­backs. Boeing, which has been drift­ing from scan­dal to scan­dal in recent years, would remain rel­a­tively untouched, with a $5 bil­lion shave off of its mis­sile defense pro­gram.
AND MORE: Over at the Red Herring, Jennifer Kho takes a look at the pos­si­bil­i­ties of these cuts stick­ing. She quotes a cer­tain scruffy blog edi­tor.
AND MORE: Your choice — read Defense Tech today, or the Washington Post tomor­row. On page A1, DC’s big paper weighs in on the Defense Department’s bud­get trim pro­posal.
AND MORE: It’s not just the Congressmen who are squirm­ing. Air Force sec­re­tary James Roche is start­ing to talk about get­ting back the $10 bil­lion cut from the F/​A-​​22 jet pro­gram, too. Future fund­ing for the plane “could be restored,” Roche tells the Star-​​Telegram, “if we can make the case that require­ments jus­tify more than the num­ber that this bud­get would yield.”

January 4th, 2005 | Money Money Money | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.