US Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveils cuts in military spending on Thursday as he moves to preempt Congress from making deeper reductions in the Pentagon's budget, officials said.
Gates, mindful of rising political pressure to rein in the country's deficit and national debt, has for months signaled plans to find tens of billions of dollars in savings in the defense budget while preserving key military programs.
Gates was to brief key lawmakers on Thursday before publicly announcing cuts to a number of weapons projects and other programs, including eliminating an amphibious landing craft favored by the US Marine Corps, officials and analysts said.
The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, produced by the defense firm General Dynamics, has come under intense scrutiny with Gates questioning the necessity of preparing for a possible beach assault which he considers unlikely.
Apart from cancelling the amphibious craft, Gates was also expected to propose changes in the F-35 fighter jet program, extending by about two years the development time for a variant of the aircraft designed for the US Marines, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst who advises Lockheed Martin and other contractors.
Gates resisted pressure from the White House to cut up to 150 billion dollars in defense spending over several years and instead will propose about 80 billion in cost savings, Thompson told AFP.
Pentagon officials said Gates was sticking by his stance that any savings in the defense budget should be reinvested back into crucial programs.
If Gates' approach wins approval, the overall defense budget would continue to rise slightly, albeit at a nominal rate compared to the dramatic increases in the years after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The defense secretary, an experienced Washington hand who once ran the CIA, carries major influence with members of Congress and has a good chance of heading off any attempt at a more drastic cuts to defense spending this year, he said.
"I think as long as Gates is there, Congress will be unlikely to substantially cut defense spending," Thompson said.
However, with Gates vowing to leave office sometime this year, pressure will continue to mount for more serious cuts in the vast US defense budget, he said.
Republican lawmakers, who have taken control of the House of Representatives after elections in November, say defense spending will not be excluded from budget cuts though they have suggested military programs will be spared deep reductions.
The defense budget for 2011, approved last month by Congress, comes to 724.6 billion dollars. The so-called "base" defense budget is 548.2 billion — which does not include the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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