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Morning News

The Bush Presidency: Administration Conducts Review of Military, Denies Request for Billions

Aired February 9, 2001 - 11:10 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Bush administration down below here is conducting a far-reaching review of the U.S. military. This comes as the president says no to a Pentagon request for billions of dollars in military funding.

And now, let's get more on all this all right now from CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

He's standing by at the Pentagon this hour -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, let's break this into two parts. First, there's the Pentagon's expectation that it was going to get anywhere between $5 and $7 billion to help pay for things that's it's already spent money on, things like peacekeeping in the Balkans, things like fuel and spare parts, and also an unfunded health care liability that they incurred last year.

These were all things that they were expecting that would be handled routinely in a supplemental request to Congress for additional funds for the current year, the year that the Pentagon's already in -- a rude awakening earlier this week when the Bush administration informed the Pentagon that no, they thought they'd wait on that supplemental request until they completed a complete review of all of the programs and strategies at the Pentagon.

Well, the joint chiefs of staff are now talking about how to deal with this and they're going to be sending a very forceful message to the White House they need some of this money right now, that this is -- they understand the idea about taking a pause and planning and taking a review of the strategy, but there are things they need money for right away.

And they're getting some help up on Capitol Hill from some very prominent members of Congress, Republicans who support the president, trying to make the case that while they appreciate the approach the Bush administration is taking, there is a critical need for some of these things if the president's going to make good on his campaign pledge to restore the military, to fix the readiness problems and address some critical problems right away. So that's part one.

Part two is that the president is carrying through with his campaign promise to conduct a review of what the Pentagon does and in particular, also his promise to take a look at the number of nuclear weapons that the United States has, to decide whether or not the U.S. perhaps could have deeper cuts than what's called for under existing arms control agreements and those that are currently in negotiations with the Russians. It's a very complicated subject, but the president has asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to get back to him, tell them whether he can meet his commitment, which in the campaign was to have the fewest number of nuclear weapons that were consistent with national security.

Bush never put a number on that, but he indicated that he didn't want to pay for any nuclear weapons the United States doesn't really need. And so that review is under way, and it's expected that in a matter of months or so, the president will get some kind of advice from the defense secretary about how to go on those important issues -- Leon.

HARRIS: Well, Jamie, will this review in any way change President Bush's plans for a so-called Star Wars system?

MCINTYRE: Well, the United States remains committed to fielding a national defense, part of what the United States says is really a different strategy from what was employed during the Cold War, when the strategy was essentially mutual-assured destruction -- that is that both sides, both the United States and Russia, knew that they could wipe each other out in a nuclear exchange.

But now with threats emerging from other countries, the United States wants to move away from that strategy and have some kind of a defense, so that the United States is not vulnerable to missile attack from other countries. There's not so much concern about Russia. But all of this is interwoven in the agreements on arms control, and the U.S. may try to use the cuts in nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip to get the Russians to allow to amend the ABM treaty to allow for a missile defense -- Leon.

HARRIS: Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon, keeping it all straight for us this morning, thanks.

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