Pentagon Chief Hints at Dramatic Reform

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signaled his intention to pursue dramatic changes in the way the nation’s armed forces are organized, laying out for the first time his plans to overhaul the Pentagon in a private meeting with President Bush, several senior government officials said Thursday.

Rumsfeld stopped short of making recommendations about weapon programs during his 90-minute meeting at the White House on Wednesday. But several people close to the Pentagon’s review said it is leading to significant changes in the weapons the Defense Department buys and the way the military thinks about the strategic challenges facing the United States.

Most notably, the sources said, Rumsfeld’s review is likely to call on the Navy to stop building huge aircraft carriers and start designing a new, smaller carrier that is less vulnerable to missiles. “The big loser is the carrier,” said one person familiar with the review.

The review is also likely to push the Air Force toward spending more on long-range bombers and unmanned aircraft and less on short-range fighters, sources said. One Pentagon official said he expects that Rumsfeld eventually will ask the Air Force to buy fewer F-22s--a new fighter plane whose cost-effectiveness has been questioned--but start acquiring them sooner.

Pentagon officials say Rumsfeld’s closely guarded study of military policy will guide the Bush administration as it seeks to fulfill the president’s campaign pledge to improve the quality of the nation’s armed forces. Though he put no additional money in his budget plan for military spending, Bush has made clear that once Rumsfeld’s study is complete, the White House will support as big an increase in the defense budget as seems necessary.

Rumsfeld made no recommendations to Bush at their meeting Wednesday, and so no approval was requested, said people there. But the president essentially endorsed Rumsfeld’s approach, they said.