Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Reuters.com
February 10, 2009
By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon has not yet decided whether to continue production of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-22 fighter jet, but reiterated that current economic conditions required tough choices among competing programs.
Gates said on Tuesday that there was broad agreement to begin including more spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Pentagon's base budget, but doing so would take more time than he initially hoped.
Pentagon officials last year proposed increasing the fiscal 2010 defense budget to around $584 billion in 2010 from $515 billion in fiscal 2009, partly to include more war spending.
But the White House Office of Management and Budget last week said it had told defense officials to pare the proposal back to around $527 billion, the sum projected by the Bush administration last year.
The Pentagon's top suppliers, Lockheed, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp, BAE Systems, Raytheon Co, are anxiously awaiting news of any possible cuts in their programs.
Lockheed in particular has been lobbying for an extension of its F-22 program, running a full-page advertisement in Tuesday's Washington Post which argued that the program supported 95,000 direct and indirect jobs across the country.
Lawmakers for years have urged the Pentagon to include war spending, which reached nearly $190 billion in 2008, in its base budget rather than submitting a series of separate funding requests that do not receive equal scrutiny.
"It is now clear that with today's economic realities we are unable to place as much of the war cost as we would have liked, as soon as we would have liked, into the base budget," Gates told a news conference.
He said the Pentagon was continuing "cordial and productive" discussions with the White House, and there was broad agreement that war costs should be folded into the base budget over time.
Given the cost of the wars and economic conditions, Gates said the Pentagon budget needed to cut costs, deal with "programs that are being poorly executed or having execution programs," and better balance current and future needs.
He said the F-22 program, slated to end production in 2009, was one of many programs that would be examined carefully during the budgeting process. He declined to say if the fiscal 2010 budget would call for termination of specific programs.
He hoped the Pentagon could provide a unified budget that would ultimately be approved by the president and Congress.
"My hope is that if we present a coherent whole, a holistic approach to the budget that demonstrates seriousness of purpose, that people will see the logic in what we've put together and conclude that it's in the best interests of the country as a whole," he said.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday his priorities were to preserve compensation packages for military personnel and to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and any cuts would come from "particularly programs whose costs have spun out of control."
February 10, 2009
By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon has not yet decided whether to continue production of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-22 fighter jet, but reiterated that current economic conditions required tough choices among competing programs.
Gates said on Tuesday that there was broad agreement to begin including more spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Pentagon's base budget, but doing so would take more time than he initially hoped.
Pentagon officials last year proposed increasing the fiscal 2010 defense budget to around $584 billion in 2010 from $515 billion in fiscal 2009, partly to include more war spending.
But the White House Office of Management and Budget last week said it had told defense officials to pare the proposal back to around $527 billion, the sum projected by the Bush administration last year.
The Pentagon's top suppliers, Lockheed, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp, BAE Systems, Raytheon Co, are anxiously awaiting news of any possible cuts in their programs.
Lockheed in particular has been lobbying for an extension of its F-22 program, running a full-page advertisement in Tuesday's Washington Post which argued that the program supported 95,000 direct and indirect jobs across the country.
Lawmakers for years have urged the Pentagon to include war spending, which reached nearly $190 billion in 2008, in its base budget rather than submitting a series of separate funding requests that do not receive equal scrutiny.
"It is now clear that with today's economic realities we are unable to place as much of the war cost as we would have liked, as soon as we would have liked, into the base budget," Gates told a news conference.
He said the Pentagon was continuing "cordial and productive" discussions with the White House, and there was broad agreement that war costs should be folded into the base budget over time.
Given the cost of the wars and economic conditions, Gates said the Pentagon budget needed to cut costs, deal with "programs that are being poorly executed or having execution programs," and better balance current and future needs.
He said the F-22 program, slated to end production in 2009, was one of many programs that would be examined carefully during the budgeting process. He declined to say if the fiscal 2010 budget would call for termination of specific programs.
He hoped the Pentagon could provide a unified budget that would ultimately be approved by the president and Congress.
"My hope is that if we present a coherent whole, a holistic approach to the budget that demonstrates seriousness of purpose, that people will see the logic in what we've put together and conclude that it's in the best interests of the country as a whole," he said.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday his priorities were to preserve compensation packages for military personnel and to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and any cuts would come from "particularly programs whose costs have spun out of control."