Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says he wants $700 billion to fund the Pentagon and the war in Iraq. If he gets it, he will preside over the equivalent of the 10th-largest economy in the world. Gates explained the Pentagon's budget request to lawmakers Wednesday.
Speaking alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, Gates acknowledged that there might be "some sticker shock" at first encountering the figure.
"But consider that the amount of money the U.S. is projected to spend in defense this year is actually a smaller percentage of GDP than when I left government 14 years ago following the end of the Cold War," Gates said.
Like many statistics government officials cite, this one is true, even if it may be misleading.
When considering all of the wars the United States has fought since the American Revolution, adjusting dollar amounts to 2007 figures, the money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is the second-highest total in U.S. history, second to World War II.
When adjusted to 2007 dollars, spending on the Revolutionary War was about a hundredth of 1 percent of total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2003.
That could be why Gates was asked a lot of questions Wednesday, like this one from Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter:
"What are the prospects for having some light at the end of the tunnel?"
Gates answered, "I think the honest answer, Senator, is I don't know, but I would say this: I think I consider it my responsibility to give the president and the Congress an honest evaluation of whether the strategy is working or not in September."
Congress is dealing with two separate money issues related to defense at the moment. One is the Pentagon's budget for 2008; the other is the supplemental funds, intended for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress approved a supplemental funding bill — but with conditions like a timetable for troop withdrawal, which led President Bush to veto it. Because of that, Pentagon officials are understandably anxious about what to do if they don't get the supplemental cash soon.
"If we pulled out all the stops, made use of everything possible available to us, we could probably fund the war into July," Gates said, "but I would tell you the impact on the Department of Defense would be huge if we had to do that."
To underline his point, the secretary offered a little Chinese philosophy.
"As Sun Tzu said more than 2,500 years ago," Gates said, "the art of war teaches to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAzMjM2NDYzMDEyMzc1Njk5NjAxNzY3OQ001))
