Bush sets $440 billion for defense

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Bush next week will request a $439.3 billion Defense Department budget for 2007, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained yesterday by the Associated Press.

The spending plan would include $84.2 billion for weapons programs, a nearly 8 percent increase, including billions of dollars for fighter jets, Navy ships, helicopters and unmanned aircraft.

The total includes a substantial increase in weapons spending for the Army, which will get $16.8 billion in the 2007 budget, compared with $11 billion this year.

Senior defense officials provided the totals on the condition of anonymity because the defense budget will not be publicly released until Monday. The figures did not include the expected supplemental spending requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007.

The budget plan continues administration efforts to transform the military into a more efficient, agile fighting force, while also making investments in new technologies that will better equip troops to fight the global war on terror.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not provide any details of the budget yesterday but called it appropriate, adding: “We have been able to fund the important things that are needed. It is a sizable amount of money.”

The budget proposal represents the fifth year in a row that spending on weapons has increased, after years of cutbacks during the 1990s.

It also provides funding for 42 Army Brigade Combat Teams as part of the ongoing effort to increase the number of combat units from 33. The expansion would allow soldiers to spend two years at their home station for every year they are deployed to a war front.

Overall, the Army would receive $111.8 billion, including $42.6 billion for personnel. The Army National Guard would receive about $5.25 billion for personnel, and the Army Reserves would receive $3.4 billion.

Also yesterday, the Bush administration said it will ask Congress for $120 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion more for hurricane relief this year.

The details of the requests are not finalized, but President Bush’s budget for 2007 will reflect the totals for planning purposes, said the aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House has not yet announced the requests.

About $70 billion of the new war money will be requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, bringing total spending on the two campaigns to $120 billion for the current budget year.

The other $50 billion in new war money will be set aside in the 2007 budget for the first few months of the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. More money will likely be needed in 2007.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the requests reflect the president’s desire to “commit the resources that are necessary to fight and win the war on terrorism.”

The requested money would cover troop salaries and benefits, repairing and replacing equipment, supporting U.S. embassies in the two countries and taking on the insurgency. It also would cover the costs of continuing to train Iraqi and Afghan security forces.