|
|
|
|
|
Clinton's
Pentagon Budget To Stand Thomas
E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the military's top brass yesterday that President Bush has decided to stick with the Clinton administration's planned Pentagon budget of $ 310 billion for the next fiscal year, military officials said. The statement, in a closed-door meeting, came as a blow to military leaders who had hoped for a quick boost in funding, particularly because Bush campaigned on the theme that the Clinton administration had allowed military readiness to decline precipitously. The planned budget represents a $ 14 billion increase from the current year's defense spending of about $ 296 billion, but it is far less than many in the military expected. "That's going to be a surprise to some folks here, yes," one official said yesterday. Last month, representatives of the armed services told Congress that they urgently needed billions of dollars in additional spending to shore up readiness. The top officers in the military -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plus the four-star generals and admirals who are the regional commanders in chief -- met with Rumsfeld yesterday at Fort McNair, then visited the White House last night, an official said. Rumsfeld told the officers that before he would consider increasing their budgets, he wanted to conduct a strategic review of the entire military. Rumsfeld also told the military leaders that the review would take several months and that he expected them to "stick to their knitting" in the meantime, one officer said. Mary Ellen Countryman, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, also said last night that the Bush White House does not plan to request a supplemental defense appropriation this year. Rumsfeld's comments yesterday appeared to be a departure from his testimony last month during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Is it clear that there needs to be an increase in the budget?" he asked rhetorically at that time. "There is no doubt in my mind." The decision not to seek an immediate increase in the Pentagon budget also appeared to be at odds with comments made during the presidential campaign by Bush and Vice President Cheney. In a speech in Atlanta last August, for example, Cheney gave a grim assessment of the state of the military, saying that the services cannot recruit enough troops, hold on to enough officers, get enough planes and helicopters into the air or maintain adequate training. Holding defense spending to the level projected by the Clinton administration may set off a battle between defense hawks and the White House. One Republican defense group, the Project for a New American Century, issued a statement yesterday calling on Bush to "increase defense spending, increase it substantially, and increase it now." The group endorsed the idea of a strategic review but said, "One doesn't need a new review to see that planes aren't flying for lack of parts, soldiers aren't training for lack of funds, and the Navy's ammunition stocks are running dangerously low." The White House's decision could provoke a sense of betrayal in the military, experts said. "I think the senior military leadership will be upset," said Richard Kohn, a University of North Carolina historian who is an expert in civil-military relations. "It also may lead some thoughtful officers to question whether they have been manipulated politically by the new administration." Even so, the move by the White House appears to achieve two political goals, noted Gordon Adams, director of security studies at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. "I think the White House is issuing a signal about who is in charge" -- that the president and Congress, not the Pentagon and the service chiefs, will set the budget, he said. In addition, Adams said, Bush may be signaling that his top priority is a tax cut. But the Project for the New American Century said in its statement that not seeking an increase now could make it harder to get one later, especially if the tax cut substantially reduces federal revenue. Also, it said, "there is no guarantee that the Republicans will control Congress past 2002."
|
   
|
