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Gates calls for huge cuts in weapons programs

Calling it a plan “crafted to reshape the priorities of America’s defense establishment,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday unveiled a controversial defense budget blueprint for fiscal 2010 that would cut spending on several high-profile weapons systems, maintain planned end-strength increases and boost spending for wounded warriors, medical research and family program improvements.

“This is a reform budget, reflecting lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet also addressing the range of other potential threats around the world, now and in the future,” Gates told a packed press briefing room at the Pentagon.

In what Gates admitted was an “unorthodox approach” — announcing his recommendations in advance of the formal annual White House budget submission to Congress — Gates proposed ending program funding for the Air Force’s F-22 fighter, C-17 transport aircraft, and the combat search-and-rescue and presidential helicopter programs.

He also called for killing the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) armored vehicles program and launch a competition to supply new vehicles.

He wants to complete the nascent Navy DDG-1000 destroyer program in fiscal 2010 and “smoothly restart” the DDG-51 Aegis destroyer program.

The decision on the F-22, whose builders have lobbied hard in recent months in light of Gates’ criticisms of the jet’s high program cost and lack of use in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “was not a close call,” Gates said. He said the Air Force itself advised him to halt the program at 187 jets.

Gates also proposed increasing spending on Navy Littoral Combat Ships and the joint-service Joint Strike Fighter.

On the personnel side, Gates did not address the 2010 pay raise, as the administration is already on record as favoring a 2.9 percent bump to take effect Jan. 1, 2010 — a figure that key lawmakers have indicated they will increase by 0.5 percentage points, as it has frequently done in recent years.

The Obama administration’s overall defense budget request, announced in February, totals $533.7 billion, which would be a 4 percent increase over this year’s figure of $513.3 billion.

Gates did address the size and capability of the Defense Department’s military and civilian workforces, and said he wants to maintain or build capability in those areas.

He said that completing the growth of the Army and Marine Corps — slated to rise to 547,400 and 202,000, respectively — and also halting personnel reductions in the Navy and Air Force will cost $11 billion more than was approved during the current fiscal year.

At the same time, Gates wants to reduce the number of Army brigade combat teams from a planned-for 48 to 45.

“This will ensure that we have better-manned units ready to employ and help put an end to the routine use of stop-loss,” he said, referring to the widely unpopular practice that forces soldiers on deployment orders who are close to their end-of-service dates to stay on duty.

“This step will also lower the risk of hollowing the force,” he said, adding that he does not think the change would delay the Army’s plan to increase “dwell time,” as time back home between deployments is known.

Gates also wants to increase the size of special operations forces by 2,800, or 5 percent, and increase by 2011 the number of cyber warfare experts the Pentagon is training annually from 80 to 250.

More government civilian jobs also could be on the way. Gates called for wide-ranging reform of acquisition and contracting and said he wants to convert 11,000 contractor jobs in those areas to civil service positions and to add an additional 9,000 government acquisition professionals by 2015 — 4,100 in fiscal 2010 alone.

He also hopes to reduce support service contractors who now make up 39 percent of the Defense Department work force. That figure would shrink to the pre-2001 level of 26 percent under Gates’ recommendations, with the lost positions replaced with full-time government employees.

Gates proposed hiring 13,000 new civil servants next fiscal year, and up to 30,000 new government employees in place of contractors over the next five years.

Gates also would boost spending on medical research and development by $400 million; on programs for the treatment of war wounded by $300 million; and on improvements in child care, spouse support, lodging and education by $200 million.

In other weapons systems changes, Gates said he wants to “significantly restructure” the Army’s digitally connected FCS, accelerating the early phase of research to get technological enhancements being developed to troops in the field.

But he wants to kill the FCS vehicle family and re-launch it after the Pentagon re-evaluates the requirements, technology and approach. He said the FCS vehicles, which are being designed to avoid attacks instead of withstand them, were not geared to address combat of the sort taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least $87 billion had been planned for the FCS vehicles, which were a centerpiece of the $160 billion effort run by Boeing and SAIC.

Gates proposed increasing spending in the next fiscal year on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, calling it “a key capability for presence, stability and counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions.”

Gates also wants to buy 30 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, and buy 31 more Navy F/A-18 fighter jets but retire 250 of the Air Force’s oldest tactical fighter jets, all during the upcoming fiscal year.

He wants to spend $2 billion more on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, $500 million on the recruitment and training of helicopter pilots and maintenance crews, and $500 million on “global partnership capacity efforts.”

Gates also wants to double the annual charter of two Joint High Speed Vessels until the U.S. production program begins deliveries in 2011, and maintain the KC-X aerial tanker schedule and funding, “with the intent to solicit bids this summer.”

The Pentagon’s missile-defense program would take a $1.4 billion hit, however; Gates wants to restructure the program “to focus on the rogue state and theater missile threat.” He wants to cancel construction of a second airborne laser prototype aircraft, end the Multiple Kill Vehicle program and end expanding the number of ground-based interceptors in Alaska.

A bipartisan group of senators led by Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., immediately criticized the missile defense proposal.

“Cooperation on missile defense is now a critical component of many of our closest security partnerships around the world,” the letter stated. “We fear that cuts to the budget for missile defense could inadvertently undermine these relationships and foster the impression that the United States is an unreliable ally. Moreover, sharp cuts would leave us and our friends around the world less capable of responding to the growing ballistic missile threat.”

But the overall plan drew praise from Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who said Gates “has set out major changes to the defense budget based on changed assumptions about the wars our military must be prepared to fight.”

Skelton, who was briefed earlier Monday along with other congressional leaders, called the proposal “a good faith effort” and said he appreciates “the hard work and thoughtful consideration” Gates and his staff put into the proposals.

Gates said he knows he’ll be roundly criticized in some circles. “In the coming weeks, we will hear a great deal about threats and risks and danger to our country and to our men and women in uniform associated with different budget choices,” he said. “Some will say I am too focused on the wars we are in and not enough on future threats. The allocation of dollars in this budget definitively belies that claim.

“But it is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk, or in effect to run up the score in a capability where the United States is already dominant, is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in, and improve capabilities in areas where we are under-invested and potentially vulnerable,” Gates said. “That is a risk I will not take.”

“We are at a crossroads,” added Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs who sat in at the briefing for the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, who is on travel.

“We have under our belt the experiences of 9/11, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the emergence of things like cyber, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Cartwright said. “This submission represents the best balance of the most likely conflicts and the most dangerous conflicts we will face. It has been informed by the war fighters and the challenges they face today and are likely to face as we move to the future.”

Gates said his decisions were not guided by “finding a way to balance the books” or to fit everything within the budget top line.

“Let me be clear: I would have made virtually all of the decisions and recommendations announced today regardless of the department’s top-line budget number,” he said.

He said he consulted with the Pentagon’s military and civilian leadership and “consulted closely” with President Barack Obama, but added: “I received no direction or guidance from outside this department on individual program decisions.”

READ MORE: Gates’ budget statement

DISCUSS: The budget cuts