MyUSTINET News: Gates, Mullen Defend Defense Budget

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The $708 billion Defense Department budget for fiscal year 2011 is needed for the United States to win the battles it fights, U.S. military leaders said.

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The Defense Department is asking for $30 billion for overseas contingency operations and $159 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon said in a release.

The funding, Mullen said, "is required to win the wars we fight. And the one that needs fighting the most right now is in Afghanistan."

Gates said he believed the priorities set in the budget requests "reflect America's commitment to see that our forces have the tools they need to prevail in the wars we are in, while making the investments necessary to prepare for threats on or beyond the horizon."

In opening the hearing, committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the budget request "continues the defense reforms begun last year to re-balance the force toward the military capabilities necessary to prevail in today's conflicts to buy weapons that are relevant and affordable and to ensure that tax dollars are used wisely."

Gates's pledge to recommend vetoing the Joint Strike Fighter's alternative engine program and funding C-17 transport planes drew mixed reviews.

Levin expressed disappointment over the threat, saying some of the data to back such a decision may have been outdated.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee's ranking Republican, said he supported the recommendation but cautioned he felt "may fall on deaf ears up here unless that veto threat comes early, consistently and directly from the president."

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