Senate Panel OKs ‘Star Wars’ Cut
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WASHINGTON — A Senate subcommittee, finishing a nearly $280-billion Pentagon spending bill, deeply cut the “Star Wars” program today, stalled a troubled ballistic missile and contributed $1 billion to the war on drugs.
The defense appropriations subcommittee all but guaranteed that “Star Wars,” the Strategic Defense Initiative, will be frozen in fiscal 1990 at the 1989 level of $4 billion, plus a bit to cover inflation, and raised the possibility that the program may suffer its first actual cut.
On the drug front, where President Bush sought a $250-million contribution from the Pentagon, the subcommittee raised it to $1.055 billion.
The Trident-2 missile, also known as the D-5, lost all $1.8 billion in procurement money. The eight-warhead missile has failed two of its last three underwater launches.
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