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Washington PostGates wants to drop $14 billion Marine landing-craft program
By Craig Whitlock and Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 5, 2011; 10:54 PM
A long-troubled $14 billion program to build a landing craft for the Marine Corps is destined for the chopping block, defense officials and analysts said Wednesday, part of $100 billion in savings that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pledged to squeeze from the Pentagon's budget.
Gates is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders Thursday to outline how he intends to save the $100 billion over the next five years by cutting weapons programs, Pentagon overhead costs and other portions of the Defense Department's massive bureaucracy. Gates announced in June that he would press the military services to find the savings with the incentive that they would be able to reinvest the money in programs essential to the current war effort and military modernization.
"The secretary will not only announce how much money we have saved and where we have saved it, but what new investments this will allow us to make," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon's spokesman. "This will be as much about investments as cuts."
His push to impose thriftiness on the Pentagon is part of a strategy to protect the military's budget from deficit hawks and others on Capitol Hill. Even some Republican leaders - traditionally fierce supporters of the military - have recently suggested that the Pentagon will no longer be immune from efforts to shrink the ballooning federal deficit.
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