Defense Secretary Gates Blasts Military Spending

WASHINGTON (May 8) -- In a speech crafted for history but liable to be swept into the dustbin like so many before it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates today called for a sweeping overhaul of Pentagon spending that would not only kill expensive weapons programs but also cut military health care costs and reduce the number of generals in the ranks.

Speaking at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., on the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe during World War II, Gates said the "gusher of defense spending" that opened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and doubled the military budget over the past decade would be capped. "The gusher has been turned off and will stay off for a good period of time," he said in prepared remarks released on an embargoed basis Friday.

Gates said if combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are to be sustained at the level necessary to succeed, hard choices must be made as the Pentagon begins preparing its fiscal 2012 budget request.

"What is required going forward is not more study. Nor do we need more legislation. It is not a great mystery what needs to change," he said today from the home of World War II general and 34th president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. "What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices -- choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out."

That may be be an understatement.

Gates hinted at big changes earlier this week in a speech to the Navy League in which he asked whether the Navy really needed 11 carrier groups and no fewer than 32 of its planned next-generation destroyers. But today's speech made clear that weapons cuts -- like granting the Air Force just 20 of the 132 B-2 bombers it wanted -- was "only a start. More is needed -- much more."

On the Chopping Block

Besides canceling costly procurement programs, Gates advocated:

Cuts in military health care spending: "Leaving aside the sacred obligation we have to America's wounded warriors, health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive," Gates said. He noted that the cost of providing military retirees' health care has risen from $19 billion a decade ago to $50 billion, even as many veterans with full-time civilian jobs are opting for the taxpayer-funded TRICARE program instead of getting insurance through their employers.

At a time when civilians are seeing their premiums and co-pays go up by double digits, all proposals for "modest increases" by the Pentagon have "been met with a furious response from the Congress and veterans groups" and have gone on to "routinely die an ignominious death on Capitol Hill," he said. He suggested that despite the "admirable sentiment" in protecting veterans from higher health care costs, they must foot a bigger share of the bill.

Reducing the number of flag officers: Gates said there are simply too many generals and admirals. At a time when corporations are streamlining their management structures, no fewer than five four-star headquarters must sign off on a request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan.

He noted that while the post-Cold War military was trimmed by 40 percent, the number of generals and admirals was cut by about half that.

"How many of our headquarters and secretariats are primarily in the business of reporting to or supervising other headquarters and secretariats, as opposed to overseeing activity related to real-world needs and missions?" he asked.

Gates urged that more positions now held by an officer with stars be converted to a lower rank. But he also noted that a similar proposal made a few years ago, which targeted 37 positions out of more than 1,300 active and reserve flag officer billets, resulted in none being downgraded.

"In considering these questions, we have to be mindful of the iron law of bureaucracies," he said, "that the definition of essential work expands proportionally with the seniority of the person in charge and the quantity of time and staff available -- with 50-page PowerPoint briefings being one result."

Minding the "gaps": Gates said military planners must change the way they decide there are "alleged 'gaps' " in their requirements, and think twice before they ask for more resources.

"Should we really be up in arms over a temporary projected shortfall of about 100 Navy and Marine strike fighters relative to the number of carrier wings, when America's military possesses more than 3,200 tactical combat aircraft of all kinds?" he asked rhetorically. "Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners?"

A Nod to Eisenhower

The choice of venue was squarely aimed at upping the speech's impact. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell alerted military reporters far ahead of time that a big speech was planned in Kansas and made sure journalists had a copy of it in time for Sunday analysis pieces.

Gates observed that the last time he had been at the Eisenhower Library was with his sixth-grade class from Wichita 54 years ago. He chose the spot in the nation's heartland to better evoke Eisenhower's famous "military-industrial complex" farewell speech in 1961, in which he spoke about the need to maintain balance among national programs. There at the boyhood home of one of America's few five-star generals, he noted that President Eisenhower once said, "No one ever comes up and says, 'Let's get rid of something,' " and that he also remarked it took the Army 50 years to get rid of horses.

President Barack Obama, too, referred to Eisenhower's historic speech at West Point last December, when he laid out his case for this summer's troop surge in Afghanistan.

While administration critics often like to quote another two-term Republican president, the one who oversaw the biggest military buildup since World War II, Obama and Gates have made clear their preference for Eisenhower under whom, the defense secretary said, "real choices were made, priorities set and limits enforced."

Not that Gates is the first defense secretary to call for spending reform at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave a major speech challenging the military budget-busting bureaucracy. Few remembered it the next day when a plane crashed into the Pentagon.

Chances for Success

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank, said Gates' speech was significant because until now, the focus has been on junking military hardware.

"Now he is casting the net wider than just wayward weapons systems," Thompson said, "because he's asking questions about why military health care costs so much, the need for some commands and asking why so many generals are needed."

But whether Gates, and by extension his boss in the White House, can push through reforms is questionable.

"Secretary Gates is to be highly praised for new actions on reducing officer bloat, now at gigantic proportions, and against pork, of which the C-17 is a classic example," said Winslow Wheeler, who heads a military reform project at the Center for Defense Information. "On the other hand, we have a long way to go to make fundamental reform the operative condition in the Pentagon: pleading for still more money above our post-World War II spending high, even as war costs are going down, will not get us there."

Moreover, members of Congress are unlikely to look approvingly on cuts in defense jobs in their districts in an election year. Nor is the idea of trimming TRICARE and turning a myth of the health reform debate at least partly into reality something lawmakers are likely to embrace.

"This is not going to be well received on Capitol Hill, but it's what needed to be said," Thompson maintained. And with Gates, the only Cabinet holdover from the Bush administration, now approaching the time he has said he will stay at the Pentagon, "this is the kind of pronouncement you get from a defense secretary who's thinking about departing.

"He is saying some very tough things that the political system won't like," Thompson said, "but maybe now is the right time because his successor will be the one to take care of it."