Gates Takes His Case For Military Budget On The Road
(New York Times, April 17, 2009, Pg. 18)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took his campaign for the Pentagon’s budget to one of the nation’s premier military institutions as he pressed his argument for shifting billions of dollars from future Army weapons programs to the more immediate needs of the country’s two wars. “For too long, there was a belief, or a hope, that Iraq and Afghanistan were exotic distractions that would be wrapped up relatively soon,” Gates told a sometimes skeptical audience of officers and civilians at the Army War College in south-central Pennsylvania. As a result, Gates said, weapons and equipment most urgently needed for Iraq and Afghanistan were “fielded ad hoc and on the fly” and with temporary financing by Congress “that would go away when the wars did, if not sooner.”

Gates Urges Flexibility in Era of Iraq, Afghanistan
(Bloomberg.com, April 16, 2009)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the U.S. military must become more flexible in its approach to combat and the tools that go with it, as he sought to build support for his recommended overhaul of Pentagon spending. Gates is touring military war colleges this week to promote his plan to reorient military purchases to fit more complex, long-range scenarios that combine traditional battle with unconventional warfare. His spending blueprint, proposed earlier this month, cuts some weapons programs, as U.S. defense spending reaches $654.1 billion for fiscal year 2009 including war costs, a 72 percent gain since 2000.
Gates Plans Relaunch of U.S. Army-Vehicle Revamp
(Reuters.com, April 16, 2009)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates plans to seek full funding for the Army’s flagship modernization program after scrapping an $87 billion ground vehicle segment to make greater use of lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. In good news for co-program managers Boeing and SAIC, Gates said the Pentagon’s fiscal 2010 budget request would seek “substantial money” to develop a revamped vehicle plan for Future Combat Systems, the $159 billion modernization effort. “My hope is that we can be ready to move forward in FY 11,” with ground vehicles that better reflect urban warfare and other modern challenges, he told an audience at the Army War College.