Defense cuts means 'hard decisions'

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that fiscal pressures on the US military's budget will require sacrificing some missions abroad and scaling back pay and benefits.

Gates, who is to step down at the end of June, urged military and civilian leaders to face up to harsh realities about the future size and role of the armed forces amid a push to contain the country's huge deficit.

"To shirk this discussion of risks and consequences – and the hard decisions that must follow – I would regard as managerial cowardice," Gates said.

Speaking to an audience of defense hawks at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Gates argued that reducing Pentagon waste and overhead costs would not be enough to reach President Barack Obama's goal of $400 billion in security budget cuts over the next 12 years.

Instead, meeting Obama's objective likely will require reducing the size of the military, eliminating some "lower priority missions" overseas and reforming military pay, pensions and healthcare, he said.

The Pentagon needed to be "honest" about the consequences of downsizing the force of 1.4 million, "That a smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things," Gates said.

The White House, meanwhile, warned the House of Representatives controlled by Obama's Republican foes that the president would veto the budget bill unless US lawmakers remove conditions for a nuclear arms treaty with Russia and provisions stopping suspected militants from being brought to the US for trial.

A White House statement also threatened to veto the legislation – the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2012 – over provisions that could revive an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was being developed by General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.

The defense bill will be debated this week in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans have a majority.

The White House statement said the administration strongly objects to parts of the bill setting "onerous conditions" on its ability to implement the new START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

The legislation would link START implementation to completion of the next generation of US nuclear production facilities but that "is not expected until the mid-2020s," the White House statement said.

"The effect of this section would be to preclude dismantlement of weapons in excess of military needs," it said.

The US Senate approved the new START treaty with Russia last December. It cuts deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 within seven years and is a centerpiece of Obama's effort to "reset" relations with Moscow.

However, some Republicans have threatened to hold up implementation of the treaty if the Obama administration breaks a promise to modernize the US nuclear weapons that remain.

Reuters – AFP