Pentagon board says cuts essential

[unhappycamper]

Pentagon board says cuts essential
By Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / November 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is "not sustainable," and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs.

The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation's recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation's most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military's most pressing priorities.

Those include rebuilding ground forces battered by multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and expanding the ranks to wage the war on terrorism.

"Business as usual is no longer an option," according to one of the internal briefings prepared in late October for the presidential transition, copies of which were provided to the Globe. "The current and future fiscal environments facing the department demand bold action."

The briefings do not specify which programs should be cut, but defense analysts say that prime targets would probably include the new F-35 fight er jet, a series of Navy ship programs, and a massive Army project to build a new generation of ground combat vehicles, all of which have been skyrocketing in cost and suffering long development delays.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/10/pentagon_board_says_cuts_essential/%2e



uhc comment: Examples of the exorbitant costs can be found in the Veterans forum.

New DDG-1000 destroyer - $10,300,000,000
New F-22 Raptors - $355,000,000
New F-35 Lightnings - $239,000,000
New Excalibur 155 mm round - $89,000

I won't mention the $2,500,000,000 subs we are building every year, Ronnie Raygun's Missile Defense Shield, the new $11,500,000,000 aircraft carrier or the $12,000,000,000 the occupations are costing each and every month.