US military budget plummets down

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159009.html

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has declared cuts of 78 billion dollars in US military programs, adding that the country faces a "dire" financial situation.

Robert Gates, after negotiations with the White House, said that a slower pace of growth in defense budgets over the next five years will follow the new cuts and other measures, AFP reported on Thursday.

The proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2012 will rise to 553 billion dollars, which is a modest rate of three percent, yet future budgets will gradually be cut down to zero real growth in 2015 and 2016, Gates said in a news conference.

The cuts will mean reducing the size of the Army and the Marine Corps in 2015-16, with the Army dropping its force by 27,000 troops and the Marines by 15-20,000, he added.

Despite his will against the budget cuts, the Pentagon chief argues that the US “dire fiscal situation and the threat it poses to American influence and credibility around the world will only get worse unless the US government gets its finances in order."

Gates had previously hoped to keep away from any cuts that straightforwardly affected the fighting force but in the end has been obliged to propose lessening the size of the Army and Marines.