Obama unveils record $708 bn military budget

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117629&sectionid=3510203


US President Barack Obama seeks a record $708 billion military spending for fiscal year 2011 despite earlier vows to trim Pentagon's 'wasteful' weapons programs.

Obama is proposing in his 3.8 trillion dollar budget plan a hike in military funding, including the boosting of funds for nuclear weapons and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The 3.4 percent increase in Pentagon's base budget by Obama's White House accounts for the allocation of $549 billion in addition to earmarking another $159 billion to finance US military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US president's spending freeze on different areas of the budget, supposedly to help ease the pressure of a hefty 1.6 trillion budget deficit, does not include defense expenditures.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has welcomed the boosting of the military budget and said that the funding scheme has been drawn up according to "a dose of realism" about the threats and required funds.

He reiterated his remarks on the necessity of military preparations to encounter asymmetric warfare and 'overseas enemies' and added, "The department's leadership now recognizes that we must prepare for a much broader range of security challenges on the horizon."

Despite Pentagon's scrapping of a number of military proposals, the department will focus more on the development of unmanned planes, helicopters, electronic warfare capabilities and cyberspace measures, Reuters reported.