THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412100239
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
The Navy sustained only minor cuts Friday as a long-awaited budget ax fell on some of the Pentagon's highest-profile new weapons programs.
Beginning in 1996, the pace of construction of the Navy's Arleigh Burke class of destroyers will slow from three per year to 2.66 per year, said Defense Secretary William Perry. And procurement of the third boat in a series of new attack submarines will be delayed by one year, to 2002, he said.
The Navy reductions will save $3 billion between 1996 and 2001, Perry said. Other cuts in a package he outlined will save an additional $4.7 billion during the period. The Clinton administration wants to redirect the money into quality of life improvements for service members.
``These cuts, we believe, are prudent,'' Perry said. But Congress makes the final decisions on weapons programs, and at least one prominent Republican senator quickly questioned the reductions; other lawmakers in both parties seemed likely to fight for weapons manufactured in their states.
The biggest casualties were:
The Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile being developed for the Air Force by Northrop-Grumman Corp. The updated cruise missile is ``a silver bullet'' for the military of the future, said John M. Deutch, Perry's deputy, ``but it has become too expensive of a silver bullet.'' The project has been plagued by test failures and cost overruns. Canceling it will save $2.1 billion.
The Army's RAH-66 Commanche helicopter, a high-tech aircraft that would have used ``stealth'' technology to shield itself from enemy radars. The Army had hoped to acquire almost 1,300 of the choppers by 2010. The new plan calls for construction of two prototypes only, keeping the program alive for possible production later. The decision saves $2.1 billion.
Perry and Deutch also announced small cuts in plans to buy V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft for the Marine Corps and Special Operations Forces, develop an Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle for the Marines, and provide research and development funds for the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet.
The Pentagon leaders said larger cuts were avoided because of President Clinton's decision last week to funnel an additional $25 billion to defense over the next six years. Most of that spending will come in the final years of the period; the administration's planning still anticipates a 1996 budget about $9 billion smaller than the $263 billion program Congress approved for 1995.
``I am disturbed that today's announcement is merely first aid for the ailing defense budget,'' Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
Thurmond and other leaders in the GOP-controlled Congress that will take office in January already have signaled their eagerness to add money to defense.
But retired Marine Lt. Gen. Norman Elhert, director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, called the cuts ``useful and logical'' and urged further ``reappraisals'' of weapons programs.
``In my personal experience, it is easier for Santa to get down the chimney than to cancel a major weapons program,'' Elhert said.
Among the services, the Navy and Marine Corps appeared the big winners in the competition to preserve programs. Navy Secretary John H. Dalton said the submarine and destroyer cuts will not undermine long-range modernization efforts and he hailed the decision to continue the V-22 with only minor cuts.
The aircraft would replace aging Sea Knight helicopters, which deliver Marines ashore from the decks of Navy amphibious ships.
The destroyer cuts announced Friday will reduce from 18 to 16 the number of Arleigh Burke ships the Navy buys during the six-year span. In a statement, Ingalls Shipbuilding, one of two firms that constructs the ships, said the cut ``had been anticipated.''
Earlier this year, some analysts had warned that any reduction in the three-per-year schedule for building the destroyers would threaten the survival of either Ingalls in Mississippi or Bath Iron Works in Maine, the other firm that builds them. Bath officials could not be reached on Friday.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY BUDGET CUTS
MILITARY BUDGET DEFENSE SPENDING
by CNB