Gates Urges Congress to Avoid `Mistake' of Harmful Cuts in Military Budget - Bloomberg: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress to avoid repeating what he called “the same mistake” made by earlier officials who slashed military spending too deeply in the face of mounting federal debt.
Defense funding has dropped after periods of conflict four times in the past 100 years, gutting national security institutions, Gates told an audience at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco yesterday. The Sept. 11 attacks forced the U.S. to reverse post-Cold War spending cuts to re-arm and improve intelligence capabilities.
“It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future,” Gates said. “Yet in the coming years, the pressure will undoubtedly be great to repeat that mistake and to reduce our spending on defense.”
Gates is betting he can ward off debilitating defense cuts with reminders of past setbacks and by demanding frugal habits to save $100 billion over five years. He announced the latest belt-tightening this week, proposing to slash spending on contractors and shutter one of the military’s 10 combatant commands.
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