Free Republic

The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s proposal to close the Joint Forces Command based in Virginia. (Snip) Webb and several members of the Virginia-delegation are fighting Gates’s decision to close Joint Forces Command based in Norfolk, Va., which is a part of the secretary’s effort to save billions of dollars within the Pentagon’s budget. Webb, who chairs the committee’s subcommittee on military personnel matters, called on the Pentagon and White House to suspend any actions related to the sweeping savings initiative until Congress had “ample opportunity to review the full scope of

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates frequently makes the point that Congress funds Defense Department personnel far more easily than it does State Department employees. "There are about 6,000 FSOs," or Foreign Service officers, he told an audience in San Francisco this month. He drew laughter when he added that former secretary of state "Condi Rice used to say, 'We have more people in military bands than they have in the Foreign Service.' She was not far wrong." Well, maybe Gates should take a closer look at those military bands during his campaign to trim defense spending. My interest was triggered...