Cheney Seeking $10 Billion in Pentagon Cuts

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, heralding what he called “a fundamental shift in direction” for the American military, presented Congress Tuesday with a plan for cutting $10 billion from the Pentagon budget proposed by former President Ronald Reagan.

In only his 40th day in office, Cheney called for billion-dollar reductions for the high-technology B-2 stealth bomber and the “Star Wars” missile shield. He proposed canceling the $26-billion V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft program and killing or significantly delaying 17 other major weapons programs.

Cheney termed the proposed cuts “very, very painful” but said that there is no way to balance the budget “without offending somebody, without breaking some china, without stepping on some toes.”

Fifth Straight Year

Cheney’s budget--$305 billion for the 1990 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1--contains a 1% reduction after inflation from the current year’s spending plan. It marks the fifth consecutive year of real declines in defense spending, which has fallen 12% short of keeping pace with inflation since 1985.

But the $10 billion in reductions for 1990 represents only a down payment on a total of $64 billion that Cheney must pare from Reagan’s military spending goals over the next five years to meet the Bush Administration’s deficit-reduction targets.

The truly tough decisions lie ahead in a strategic review that the Administration plans to complete this year. Cheney and President Bush must confront what America expects from its military, how many men and women in uniform the country needs, what weapons they should be given--and how the nation plans to pay for all of it.

“These are not easy decisions,” the former Wyoming congressman told the House Armed Services Committee. “If anyone thinks it’s pleasant, with my record of unqualified support for the Defense Department and the (military) services and the various systems that we’ve voted for over the years, it’s tough. . . .

“But we do have to make some of these calls. I hope we’ll do it in an intelligent fashion.”

Highlights of the Cheney proposals:

--Place the existing 50 silo-based MX intercontinental ballistic missiles on rail cars and continue developing the truck-borne single-warhead Midgetman missile. Cheney, who had urged killing the Midgetman, followed President Bush’s orders and recommended spending $100 million on the small missile in 1990, rising to $350 million in 1994. The mobile MX would be deployed in 1992; the first of 500 Midgetmen would hit the roads in 1997.

--Cut Reagan’s proposed spending level for “Star Wars,” the Strategic Defense Initiative, by $991 million to $4.6 billion, with increased emphasis on the so-called “Brilliant Pebbles” concept of swarms of thousands of “smart” rocket interceptors roaming in space to spot and destroy incoming Soviet missiles. Cheney proposed reducing spending on SDI to $33 billion from Reagan’s $40 billion over the next five years.

--Slash spending on the stealth bomber, being built by Northrop Corp. in Palmdale, by $855 million in 1990 and $3.2 billion in 1991, while delaying production of the super-secret high-tech plane by at least a year. Referring to unspecified technical problems with the flying-wing jet, Cheney said that he has ordered a full-scale review of the $69-billion program. (Related story in Business, Page 1.)

--Continue development and early production of the Air Force’s C-17 transport plane, to be built by McDonnell Douglas Corp. at Long Beach. The Air Force had proposed stretching out production of the plane, but Cheney rejected the recommendation. The Army’s M1-A1 Abrams tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle were also saved from proposed cuts.

--Reduce active-duty military manpower by 16,800 men and women, to 2,121,000 troops. An additional 14,000 troops would be cut in 1991. Of the 1990 cuts, 8,000 would come from the Army, 5,600 from the Navy and 3,200 from the Air Force. Cheney left intact a proposed 3.6% pay hike.

--Cancel further purchases of the Army’s AH-64 Apache helicopter and the Advanced Helicopter Improvement Program or AHIP. That would save $3.2 billion and reduce planned helicopter inventories by 324 aircraft.

--Kill the Army’s M-88 recovery vehicle, a glorified tow truck for tanks, saving about $300 million.

--Cancel purchases of the Navy’s new F-14D fighter jets. The Navy would continue to refurbish older models of the F-14. The Phoenix missile that would arm the new F-14s would also be canceled.

--Buy only one more Los Angeles-class SSN-688 submarine, rather than two, for a savings of $714 million. Cheney also denied the Navy’s request to go from 14 to 15 aircraft carrier battle groups; the old carrier Coral Sea will be retired in 1991 and not replaced.

--Kill the Air Force F-15E fighter program, eliminating 89 new jets and saving about $3 billion.

--Scale back development of the National Aerospace Plane, cutting its 1990 budget to $100 million from $300 million. The hyperspeed plane, half aircraft and half spaceship, is designed to circle the globe in hours and land on conventional airstrips.

--Stretch out purchases of a variety of weapons including the Army’s ADATS and ATACMS missiles and UH-60 helicopter, the Navy’s SH-60F helicopter and F/A-18 fighter-bomber and the Air Force’s Tacit Rainbow radar-seeking missile.

Cheney also proposed eliminating two mine-hunting ships and 48 T-45 trainer jets. The secretary’s recommendations probably will be reworked radically by Congress in coming months. Supporters of terminated weapons will labor to save them--and the jobs they provide.

Efforts will be made to shuffle money around within the $305-billion spending limit decreed by the congressional budget committees. Lawmakers predicted that opponents of SDI, for example, will attempt to raid its fat budget to fund pet projects, such as the Midgetman missile.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), dismayed at the low initial funding levels for Midgetman, asked for Cheney’s promise that the Administration would build the small missile after it completed work on the MX rail program. “As far as the President is concerned . . . this is a firm commitment,” Cheney responded.

Cheney and Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued the usual dire warnings about the continuing menance posed by the Soviets and other unfriendly nations.

“For several years, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been testifying that the military risk is in their judgment too high,” said Crowe, the nation’s senior uniformed officer. “Yet for another year, defense spending will continue downward in real terms; force structure will decrease and military risks will rise by even another increment.”

Lawmakers attempted to elevate parochial concerns into issues of global strategy.

Supporters of the V-22--whether former members of the Marine Corps, the chief user of the plane, or representatives from Texas, where it is being built--argued that the aircraft is essential to protecting American lives and interests in the remotest corners of the globe.

Rep. William L. Dickinson (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the panel, summarized lawmakers’ reaction this way:

“Some think you’ve cut too much. Some think you’ve cut too little. Everybody thinks you cut the wrong thing.”