Following White House meeting, DoD eyes major weapons cuts and kills

Published: Nov 18, 2005
Source: aimpoints.hq.af.mil



The Defense Department is drawing up a short list of Air Force, Army and Navy weapon system programs that could be terminated or significantly pared back in the coming weeks as the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2007 budget request takes final shape.

Gordon England, the acting deputy defense secretary, and Tina Jonas, the Defense Department comptroller, met last week at the White House with senior aides to the president, including chief of staff Andrew Card, to discuss the Pentagon’s FY-07 budget request, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting.

Following that gathering, Pentagon officials set at least three programs on the chopping block: the Army’s Future Combat System, the Navy’s DD(X) destroyer and the tri-service Joint Strike Fighter, sources said.

The programs, according to an official familiar with these deliberations, are being “targeted with a whole series of so-called ‘takes’” -- Pentagon jargon for areas of the budget that can be harvested to pay other bills or finance new capabilities.continue..