House Armed Services Committee Chair Ike Skelton defended the Obama administration's proposed weapons cuts, saying "every weapons system needs to be scrutinized."Skelton made the comments in an interview with the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call.
"Every weapons system needs to be scrutinized," said Skelton. "As time goes on, some things get outdated. And it’s a constant research and development on one hand, and constant procurement on the other. And it’s all guided on the budget process. You can’t have everything that you want. That’s why you have to pick and choose," he added.
Some Republicans have argued that cutting the F-22 and the Army's Future Combat systems would hurt national security.
"We are putting $13 billion to increase the personnel system. That $13 billion has to come from somewhere. We need to take care of the troops and the Members have to know that," Skelton replied.
ALSO: Ike doesn't like the phrase "global war on terror."
"I’m not sure what it means. We are engaged in a conflict with Islamic extremists. And we should handle it as such, and we are. The genesis of those who attacked us was in Afghanistan," Skelton said.
2 comments:
Okay, so we can have every social program and spend trillions (no longer just hundreds of billions) domestically in the name of stimulus - but some how need to be picky about weapon systems which are vital to national defense?
There is a difference between being smart with money and just being partisanly dumb. Good thing we are banning the words "Global war on terror" and "Victory" from our vocabulary.
The 9/11 Commission pointed out that during the nineties we our enemies were at war with us, but we failed to recognize that danger. Are we repeating the same pattern here?
Scrapping the F-22 is a major mistake and shows the lack of defense priority understanding by Democrats.
Unfortunately, their wishes may be costly for us all down the road. It might be five or ten years, but moves like this one and the coddling of dictators can only end in something bad.
Paul,
Our military budget is 8 times larger than China's. In 2003, we spent nearly 47% of the world's military spending. The 9/11 Commission pointed out that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.Robert Gates, who was first appointed under W. Bush summed it best, "What all these potential adversaries -- from terrorist cells to rogue nations to rising powers -- have in common is that they have learned that it is unwise to confront the United States directly on conventional military terms. The United States cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence. But it is also important to keep some perspective. As much as the U.S. Navy has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, for example, in terms of tonnage, its battle fleet is still larger than the next 13 navies combined -- and 11 of those 13 navies are U.S. allies or partners."
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