Plans underway to reshape military spending

By Hadas deGroot

President Obama’s Defense budget falls short on missile defense spending, say House Republicans.

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to scale-back and reshape military spending. Even though the 2010 budget includes a 4% increase overall, this marks a slow-down of the growth of defense spending which occurred during the Bush administration.

Congressman Bob Inglis (R-SC) said the cut-backs irresponsibly take money away from missile defense.

Recently returned from a trip to Syria, Israel, Gaza, and India, Inglis said, "When you see tangible evidence of the results of missiles in Israel, and all in the midst of this comes a launch by the North Koreans, it's just a particularly bad idea to cut funding for this."

Gates' supporters say the balancing pf priorities marks a milestone for the Defense Department.

The United States could save billions by "Keeping ballistic missile defense in a research mode until the technologies are proven,” said Lawrence J. Korb, Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress.

White House Gaggle

Briefer: Dana Perino

President’s Schedule

President Bush had his normal briefings at 8 am. At 1.30 pm he will make remarks in honor of Columbian Independence Day in the East Room of the White House. The President will highlight the need for Congress to pass the US-Columbian Free Trade Agreement. Secretaries Gutierrez and Schafer, members of Congress, and members of the diplomatic corps, will be in attendance along with another 220 guests. At 2.20 pm, the President will depart the White House en route to a Goddard-Georgia victory committee reception. He will return to the Washington later this evening.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino will brief the press at 12.30 pm today.

Announcement: On July 31st, the President will make remarks at the 2008 annual meeting at the West Virginia Coal Association and then travel to Kennebunkport, Maine where he will spend the weekend.

Russia-Cuba

Perino went back to remarks from the G8 meeting where the Bush Administration repeatedly said that they seek strategic corporation with the Russians. Perino said that they want to work them to prevent missiles from rogue nations like Iran. “Our missile defense system should not be seen as a threat to Russia, “Perino said.

India

When asked about the prospects of a nuclear deal with India considering their political climate right now, Perino replied that President Bush met with Prime Minister Singh a few weeks ago and got an update from him. Politics in India have been tough to deal with, but the Prime Minister has been trying to build a consensus. It will be up to the Indian Congress to decide whether they will move forward with something that the Bush Administration considers being a very good opportunity. They are going to need a lot of energy and one of the best ways of doing that is to have clean nuclear power instead of coal fire power plants, Perino said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Perino was asked about a reaction to Gordon Brown’s statement to withdrawal of British troops in Iraq, and she said that because the conditions on the ground in Iraq have dramatically changed, mainly attributed to the surge, not only American but also British troops can start to think about transitioning their troops in Iraq. When asked if the President was informed of the Prime Minister’s remarks before hand, Perino said that she was not sure if the President knew but the National Security Advisor was informed.


Iraq

We share the goal of the Iraqis wanting taking over their own security; that is what we have all been working on, Perino said and continued: “We also support setting a time horizon that we said we would do in this agreement.” When asked what a time horizon is, Perino replied that it is an aspirational goal looking into the future, looking at a date in the future when the Iraqis can take over their own security. Perino gave a rare hypothetic; For example, they would look for month “x” when Iraq will take over “y” province, but if the conditions were not right, they would go back and reevaluate the situation. Perino said that Anbar province is a good example of a territory where the Iraqis have been close to taking over the security control, but now it is a rolling date because conditions are not right and they are not ready yet. Whenever the agreement is finalized, the White House does expect an aspirational goal with possibly several separate dates.
Also, when asked if President Bush would like to see Iraq again before leaving office, Perino said that she did not know. In the remaining six months, the President wants to make sure that he is in contact with troops as much as possible, but there is nothing on the schedule terms of a trip to Iraq.

Presidential Candidates travel

Perino was asked if the White House thinks it is appropriate for any American presidential candidate to go to both a war zone and visit foreign capitals on a trip very much designed as a presidential trip, and she responded that it is up to the media and the candidates themselves to decide that.

North Korea

When asked about how hopeful the White House is on reaching a verification agreement with the six party talks before the August 10th, and Perino said that President Bush thinks the verification piece of the six-party talks is critically important, but “he is very skeptical of the North Koreans, and that is why we have to continue to verify, and push and we are going to be rigorous in that verification”, Perino said.

Sen. Kyl (R-AZ): Democrats have ignored missile defense

The American Foreign Policy Council hosted their second annual conference on missile defense.

The biggest themes from both Jim Woolsey, CIA director under Clinton and Sen. Jon Kyl were that we are moving away from a cold war way of thinking and a focus on negotiating with Russia and focusing on new threats from Iran, China, and North Korea.

Woolsey focused on the ideology that controls Iran and that it should be taken as seriously as Hitler. He advocated even stronger sanctions against Iran for example, cutting off their refined petroleum product such as diesel. He said that the United States should increase their outreach to citizen's in Iran who are displeased with the Amadinejad regime via broadcasting mediums like VOA. He said that caveats the National Intelligence Estimate in December had been ignored and those indicated that Iran continues to March toward developing nuclear weapons. Woolsey said if Iran continues to advance in it's nuclear development the only thing worse than the use of force would be to let Iran have a nuclear weapon.

Kyl went a bit more into Russian and Chinese threats and how a missile that travels through space to reach it's target is a "space weapon." He defended the recent shoot down of the broken US satellite as a good sign for US missile defense. Kyle was much more political saying that the Democrats have been failing in appropriate funding for missile defense. Sen. Kyl said that only John McCain would return solid funding to missile defense. He criticized a "mindset on Capitol Hill that we should be spending as much on the Peace Corps as missile defense." He called for studies on space based missile defense and full funding for missile defense. He said he feared that a new administration with the same person said we should eliminate money from the missile defense program.

White House Gaggle

Briefer: Dana Perino

President’s Schedule
President Bush had his normal briefings this morning. At 9:55 am, he will meet with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic in the Oval Office of the White House. The two leaders are expected to discuss cooperation on missile defense and the visa waiver program. President Bush will also thank the Prime Minister and the people of the Czech Republic for their commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
This afternoon at 2.10 pm, the President will meet the Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. At 3.05 pm, President Bush participates in a photo opportunity and makes remarks to the Boston Red Sox.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino will brief the press at 12.30 pm today.

Iraq
Perino was asked about Iraq’s presidential council has rejected a measure to setting up provincial election, how much this setback with this is, and she replied that their government system has an option of veto similar to ours. We would have liked to go forward without any complications, but this is democracy at work, in Iraq, Perino stated. Perino also answered to the question of General Petreus next visit to Washington, which looks like the week of April 7th, 2008.
House Bill on PETFAR

Today, the House is bringing up a markup bill on PETFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) for $ 50 billion, whereas the President supports $ 30 billion, and Perino was asked why not the higher level of spending; and she said that whenever you are starting up a new system like we have with PETFAR, it takes a while for countries and governments to scale up and spend the money that you give them. “We believe that $ 30 billon is the right amount of money that could be effectively used by these governments to tackle the HIV/AIDS problems,” Perino said and continued, “We don’t think it is smart to send additional American tax payer dollars that will sit there and not be used, or be used ineffectively or in a matter that does not actually fit the mission.”
Senator Clinton’s Public Schedule as First Lady

During last night’s debate, Senator Clinton talked about her scheduling records being releases from her time as First Lady. Clinton also mentioned that President Bush claims the right to take a look anything that is released. Perino was asked if the Administration has been approached by the Clintons about the release of such documents and also if there are any reservations on behalf of this. Perino said that she was not very familiar with the Presidential Records Act in regards to former presidents but she will check with the Office of White House Council and get back with more information.
Red Sox and Steroids

Perino was asked if President Bush intents to make any reference to baseball steroid use during his remarks at the afternoon event, and she said that she did not think so.

General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed the press about a mission to shoot down a defunct satellite with a tactical missile

Gen. Cartwright repeated the Defense Department's previous statement that the shot from the USS Lake Erie was a direct hit, though he said there is no "smoking gun" as to whether the fuel tank had been hit. The video of the impact showed some indications, he said, that the tank was breached such as a fireball and a vapor cloud. But Cartwright said that they are still compiling all the radar evidence and at at this time the military is about 90 percent sure that the tank was breached.



Cartwright said that no debris any larger than the size of a football has been identified thus far, though the military will be tracking the debris for its next three rotations of the earth. Most of this debris is expected to burn up upon its reentry into the atmosphere. Overall, he said that the various commands working on the project were pleased. He said that this operation didn't give any new insight into the realm of missile defense since the missiles used had been modified away from their original purpose of defensive missile interception to perform this shot. The main difference Cartwright expressed, is that the satellite target is not like the missiles originally intended target--an intercontinental ballistic missile, in that the satellite does not follow a ballistic trajectory, it was traveling faster and it is not aerodynamic.

The two prepared, but unused back-up missiles will be reverted to their original purpose of missile defense over the course of the next few weeks. Cartwright said that all the debris which does not burn up in the next 48 hours should de-orbit over the next month.