Thursday, April 17, 2025
Key Issues Tariff impact Taiwan conflict Fighters for Selfridge
President Bush today asked Congress for $623.1 billion in fiscal year 2008 defense funds, including $141.7 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and war on terrorism operations and $12.1 billion to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.
The Army is due to receive more than half of a $99.7 billion supplemental funding request prepared for Congress by the Pentagon, according to documents and sources.
The Army has finalized a budget plan that proposes cutting $3.3 billion from its Future Combat System, killing the Land Warrior program and terminating or sharply trimming funds for many other initiatives, according to sources familiar with the plan.
The Pentagon wants Congress to add two V-22s, four C-130Js and one C-17 to its fiscal year 2007 budget, along with thousands of new trucks, according to budget documents sent to Capitol Hill in late June.
The Defense Department plans to accelerate retirement of key Air Force aircraft, including nearly half the B-52 bomber force and the full U-2 spy plane and F-117 stealth fighter fleets, in a bid to save $2.6 billion and boost spending for the services' prized F-22A fighter aircraft program.
The Pentagon handed down 11th-hour budget cuts after Christmas last week, slashing $4 billion from the Army and Navy and plowing $3.5 billion into a wide range of new initiatives, many of which are designed to support combatant commanders.
The Pentagon has set an aggressive schedule for the completion of its new defense budget and is poised this week to begin advising the services of what weapon system programs will soon be cut.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told House and Senate appropriators he will join with "the president's senior advisers" in recommending a veto of the defense spending bill should it sustain the Senate's proposed $7 billion cut.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee has added $200 million to the administration's budget request for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, doubling the amount added by the other defense committees to enhance testing in fiscal year 2006.
The Bush administration has picked Dorrance Smith, former media adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, to be the Pentagon's chief spokesman.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants all Defense Department employees to heed the advice of a Defense Science Board task force on acquisition management, which warned in March that the Pentagon had not done enough to prevent future procurement scandals.
"You are fielding pieces of crap. Is that clear enough to you?"
The Navy and Missile Defense Agency are studying options for defending ships against short-range ballistic missiles, including a new, unorthodox alternative -- equipping fighter aircraft with interceptors like the most advanced version of the Patriot, according to Navy documents and sources.
Germany has officially signed on to the design and development of the Medium Extended Air Defense System.
The Pentagon, nearing a May 16 deadline for Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations, has established a joint task force charged with managing communications for the politically charged process.
Patriot fratricide incidents in Operation Iraqi Freedom involved a combat identification deficiency that was "not exactly a surprise," yet the need to fix it has never been given enough support, a Pentagon advisory board states in a new report.
The Missile Defense Agency is assessing how it will meet a Pentagon demand to trim $5 billion from its budget over the next six years, according to industry and government sources.
The Pentagon's acquisition chief last week authorized the Army to begin limited low-rate initial production of the Stryker Mobile Gun System.
The Pentagon's top acquisition official wants the services and defense agencies to pay more attention to safety in designing weapon systems.
The Arrow missile defense system failed to achieve an intercept today during a test at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California, the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.