Senate Panel Urges Cutting Military Ranks by 100,000

A Senate Armed Services subcommittee, meeting in closed session, voted Tuesday to cut military manpower by 100,000 in the coming year, or nearly three times more than recommended by the Administration, sources said.

At the same time, another panel voted to keep open the M1 tank production line, despite Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s efforts to close it within two years.

Angry Army officials, who would suffer the largest manpower cuts, immediately accused lawmakers of taking the “cowardly political choice” of forcing soldiers and officers out of the service while keeping unneeded production lines running to satisfy parochial political concerns.

The size and direction of the cuts indicates that President Bush and Cheney are losing the argument with Congress over how to manage reductions in military spending.

Cheney has argued that the defense budget can be substantially cut over the next five years but that manpower reductions must be relatively small in the first year to prevent chaos. He has consistently said that protecting military personnel from layoffs is one of his highest priorities.

Cheney also has attempted to cancel weapons programs outright rather than stretching out purchases, but he has met resistance from members of Congress intent on saving jobs and protecting defense contractors in their home districts.

The Armed Services Committee this week began its “markup” of the Administration’s proposed $307-billion Pentagon spending bill with a series of closed-door subcommittee sessions. Senate leaders hope to schedule a vote on the measure before Congress leaves for its summer recess on Aug. 3.

The House will not take up the defense bill until September, officials said.

The Administration will have months to argue its position with those who are pushing for deeper cuts of varying magnitude. The budget finally adopted likely will reflect wins and losses by both sides, but no one is yet predicting its shape.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the committee, already has signaled that he intends to recommend overall defense spending of $289 billion--a 6% cut from the Administration’s request. Other influential senators, including Budget Committee Chairman Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), advocate even deeper cuts, both in total spending and in force levels.

The Armed Services manpower and personnel subcommittee, acting with Nunn’s concurrence, on Tuesday approved a cut of 100,000 men and women from active duty status, which currently totals 2.07 million. Cheney earlier this year recommended a cut of 38,000, saying that faster reductions would spark unmanageable disruption in the ranks.

“These are Nunn’s numbers,” a knowledgeable committee source said. “It’s a fact of life that to get the (savings) we want, this is what we have to do.”

Cheney has indicated that he is willing to accept cuts of as many as 380,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen over the next five or six years, if they are carried out gradually and if military threats to the United States continue to ease.

The Senate panel’s cuts would be apportioned this way:

--40,000 from the Army, a 5.2% cut from current strength of 744,000. The Administration recommended a 17,000-man cut.

--22,000 from the Navy, a 3.8% cut from the current 591,000, compared to Cheney’s proposed 6,000-sailor reduction.

--34,000 from the Air Force, a 6% reduction from the current 545,000, compared to the Administration’s proposed cut of 15,000.

--3,000 from the Marine Corps, a 1.6% cut from current strength of 197,000, compared to no reduction recommended by the Administration.

The manpower panel is chaired by Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), a former astronaut and Marine Corps officer.

A senior Army officer said that lawmakers are taking the easy route of cutting soldiers, who have no strong political voice, rather than a weapons system like the M1 tank, which employs thousands of unionized workers and is built by the rich and influential General Dynamics Corp.

The Armed Services conventional forces and alliance defense panel that recommended continued purchases of the M1 tank is chaired by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). The tank is built by United Auto Workers members at plants in Sterling Heights, Mich., and Lima, Ohio.

Over the last six years, General Dynamics contributed more than $46,000 to the 11 members of the Senate subcommittee. Levin, who is up for reelection, this year received the maximum allowable from the giant defense contractor--$10,000.

Levin and other defenders of the M1 claim that it is essential to keep the tank production line open to maintain America’s military-industrial capacity in case world tensions escalate.

Staff writer Dwight L. Morris contributed to this story.