NEW YORK -- A weak dollar, rising oil prices, escalating inflation rates and growing health care costs are pecking away at the U.S. military's purchasing power, forcing the Pentagon in fiscal year 2009 to spend billions of dollars that might have been spent on modernization on other priorities in order to keep pace with changes in the global economic landscape. Nearly $10 billion, or roughly 2 percent of the Pentagon's $515.4 billion request for FY-09, was needed to cover inflation...
