Posted on 12/31/2004 6:13:37 PM PST by nypokerface
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to decommission one of its aircraft carriers more than a decade early and buy fewer amphibious landing ships for Marines and sophisticated new Navy destroyers, officials said Thursday.
The proposals are part of an effort to slice $10 billion from the Pentagon budget for the 2006 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, said U.S. officials, who asked not to be named. The Pentagon is aiming for $60 billion in cuts over six years, said defense analyst Loren Thompson, citing Pentagon insiders.
The Navy plans to decommission the USS John F. Kennedy, among the oldest of its 12 aircraft carriers and one of only two that are nonnuclear-powered, officials said. The other, the USS Kitty Hawk, has its home port in Japan.
The John F. Kennedy previously had been scheduled to leave naval service in 2018 and had been due to undergo a $250 million refurbishing this year. With its home port in Mayport, Florida, it just wound up a deployment in the Gulf, where its aircraft flew missions over Iraq and supported operations in Afghanistan.
Under the proposal, the Pentagon would acquire fewer new DD(X) destroyers for the Navy than planned in the coming six years, officials said. Northrop Grumman Corp. is the prime contractor for the destroyer, the lead ship in a new class and costing about $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion each.
Also affected would be LPD-17 San Antonio-class amphibious Landing Platform Dock ships, built by Northrop Grumman at a cost of about $1.2 billion each, officials said. The Navy had intended to buy five of the ships, which carry Marine amphibious landing craft, fighting vehicles and aircraft.
Defense officials had already disclosed plans for deep cuts in Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F/A-22 Raptor, designed to be the world's top fighter jet.
The Army also is considering delaying by as much as five years a key element of its modernization plans, the Future Combat System being developed by Boeing Co., Thompson said, in another cost-cutting move.
Officials said details of the proposed spending cuts, first reported by the New York Times, were still being worked out before being sent by the Bush administration to Congress.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld telephoned Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, earlier this week to outline planned 2006 budget cuts without going into specific programs, said John Ullyot, a spokesman for Warner.
"It is clear that (the Pentagon) will play a part in overall budget reductions," Ullyot said.
The $60 billion in cuts over six years were demanded by the White House budget office and Rumsfeld has sent the services back to pare their budget requests accordingly, said Thompson, of the Lexington Institute think tank.
But despite the proposed cuts in several big-ticket items, overall spending on U.S. defense in 2006 is expected to increase from the current record level of more than $400 billion.
Thompson said Rumsfeld rejected an Air Force proposal to keep more F/A-22s by slashing instead its planned purchases of Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from about 1,800 to 1,200.
"F-35 cuts may not be materializing," Thompson said.
Thompson added that Rumsfeld had been eager to avoid per unit cost increases for the Joint Strike Fighter, a program with eight major international partners that will also supply aircraft to the Navy and Marine Corps.
Former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim, who ran the department's finances until this April, said cuts in the 2006 budget on the order of $10 billion, most of it from the acquisition budget, would be no surprise given the high-than- anticipated Iraq war costs and pressures to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Combined Iraq and Afghanistan operations were now running perhaps $6 billion a month, up $1 billion a month from a year ago, he said.
"That's clearly what's underlying this and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone," said Zakheim, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a global strategy and technology consultancy.
Seriously.. This is depressing. I doubt kerry would've been this bold in cutting our military.
the Navy alreayd has the fewesty ships since WWI. Decommisioning carriers is simply insane.
The only thing I can think of is they are redistributing resources to space command.
We should be cutting social programs and not our military. Military budget cuts during a time of war doesn't sound like a good idea.
Good God...in these dangerous times!
Cut/Delete School Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. Last I saw, years ago, these programs were over 30 Billion per year.
How about parents feeding their kids instead of other taxpayers doing so?
I can understand that this action makes fiscal sense, but as a Navy brat, I am sad to see this. I don't know, old decommissioned ships are sad. They were home to thousands of sailors in their time. Incredible stories, as yet untold, must have unfolded on their tours of duty.
I have been to the USS Hornet museum (Alameda, CA) a couple of times. My dad served on her maiden voyage. I have a couple of the newsletters that were issued during that time.
They say there are ghosts on the ship. I don't know about that, but there is a sense on board of many men, doing their jobs, moving through the various compartments. The Hornet is still alive.
Not bright....we may need those ships.
Maybe FR can have a fundraiser and get one!
=^)
He would have been crucified and blocked by the Congress.
Keep in mind, Cheney made massive cuts in the military when he was Sec. of Defense.
I don't have a problem with a nonnuclear carrier decommissioned. What I have a problem with is that there will be no replacement. Thats a lot of planes to remove from the Navy.
not the JFK. its costly and hard to operate, because tankers have to follow it constantly to fuel it. The Reagan is built now, GWB comes in 2008, and the next generation carrier comes after that. this is a good time to retire the JFK.
"But despite the proposed cuts in several big-ticket items, overall spending on U.S. defense in 2006 is expected to increase from the current record level of more than $400 billion."
Read the article closely and you'll find that the defense budget isn't being cut. This is a reprogramming of money from big ticket acquisition programs to buying things that directly support the troops on the ground. These cuts will pay for increases in beans, bullets, armor, stuff like that. If you read closely enough, you'll notice that other non-DOD programs are being cut, but the DOD budget is going up.
essentially, the Reagan just "replaced" it - if you want to look at it that way.
The F22 cuts are especially hurtful. I'm so sad about it. Like someone else said, non-nuclear cuts aren't so bad. But we need to ramp up full battle groups if we're removing them. The Reagan just launched, but I'd prefer another few next-gen ones.
I'm glad the F35 isn't being touched, but the F22 is more important I think. The F22 makes a great US continental defense system.
I hate to see projects cut though to pay for grunt stuff. We need to get on the ball with space military goals and air force/navy. I'd prefer to see the Army area cut down, and the others increased.
However, we fight 'dumb' grunt wars it seems a lot. Like Iraq. We need to keep our troops out of countries and obliterate them from outside.
I think one of the design criteria for the next-gen carriers - is they will require far fewer personnel to operate them.
Counter insurgency is a grunt war. Stuff like F-22s don't help the grunt.
BTTT
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