Military Study to Be Ready Soon

An in-depth review of U.S. military strategy and weaponry ordered by President Bush will probably be ready in four to six weeks, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said Friday.

“It’s an ongoing and detailed review. I would say within the next four to six weeks is when it is likely to come,” Card told reporters after a meeting with acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift. “It’s really up to (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld.”

When he took office, Bush ordered a broad review of the military to evaluate the size and structure of the force and the types of weapons it buys and uses. He has said he wants to revamp the military for the 21st century, perhaps even leapfrogging some planned systems to take advantage of future technology.

According to USA Today, Rumsfeld is nearing the end of the review and is poised to seek a large increase in defense spending as part of an overhaul of the military.

Quoting Defense Department sources, USA Today said Friday that Rumsfeld will ask for an increase of $200 billion to $300 billion in already planned defense spending over the next six years.

“An increase in that range for the military amounts to a 10% to 15% boost over the Pentagon’s current spending blueprint of about $2 trillion from 2002 through 2007,” the newspaper said.

The recommendation would represent a change of course for Bush, who during his campaign for the presidency called for raising defense spending by $45 billion over nine years, though leaving open the possibility he could ask for more.

Rumsfeld has not released any of his recommendations, and staff members have repeatedly stressed that no final proposals have been passed to Bush. But Rumsfeld is likely to propose the scrapping or review of several major arms programs across all the services.

Preliminary proposals already made to Rumsfeld by Pentagon study groups include canceling the Army’s Crusader mobile artillery system, halting the upgrade of its M-1A1 tank and armored Bradley fighting vehicles and retiring the Air Force’s B-1 bomber, a Pentagon official told Reuters this week.

The Navy’s planned next-generation destroyer, the DD-21, may be bypassed and panels are reviewing whether the Navy should maintain a fleet of 12 aircraft carriers and whether to proceed with two expensive new military aircraft programs.

The Air Force wants to buy 340 F-22 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin Corp. at a cost of about $60 billion. Lockheed and Boeing Co. also are vying for a contract to build thousands of Joint Strike Fighters for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and Britain’s Royal Navy.

Also under consideration is an expansion of a planned U.S. missile defense program to include sea- and space-based weapons, a defense official told Reuters last week.

USA Today said Friday that Rumsfeld would recommend greater investment in satellites, unmanned aircraft and space technology and de-emphasizing the role of ground troops. Among the ideas is reorganizing the Army’s 12,000-to-15,000-member divisions into 3,700-troop brigades to boost flexibility.

The secretary also will propose replacing aging aircraft much sooner than the current life cycle of 30 to 40 years and launching a reorganization of the services to contract out to private companies some functions not directly related to fighting wars, such as maintenance, supply and accounting, the paper said.