

When is budget growth not actual growth? When it comes to money flowing into the Pentagon slower than legislators would like.

In his first post-election speech, Rep. Buck McKeon, the California Republican who's about to become the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, warned that cutting defense spending was a "red line for me and should be a red line for all Americans." Speaking to the conservative Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, McKeon argued that the Pentagon's projected one percent real growth in the defense budget over the next five years "is a net cut for investment and procurement accounts."

There wasn't such a high expectation for trimming the defense budget after the Republicans won back the House earlier this month. But after the bipartisan leaders of the White House's deficit commission identified $100 billion in wasteful military spending, it appeared there might be some political momentum for cutting over-budget weapons and programs like the Marines' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicleand the Navy, Marines and Air Force's F-35 fighter jet. McKeon did his best to stop any such momentum this afternoon.

"A defense budget in decline portends an America in decline," McKeon said, arguing that cuts will have geopolitical consequences, "undermin[ing] our ability to project power, strengthen our adversaries and weaken our alliances."

In his speech, McKeon embraced Defense Secretary Robert Gates' "efficiencies initiative" to cut $100 billion in overhead costs and reinvest them in buying ships, guns, tanks and planes. But he didn't identify any specific sources of waste that he would target in order to transfer "funds to higher national-security priorities and promising technologies of the future." Instead, he warned that "whatever the intentions of Secretary Gates," the White House would just pocket the savings from his initiative and either cut defense outright or spend the money on domestic priorities.

During a post-speech press conference, McKeon didn't sound like he was out to cut any specific programs. He reminded reporters that he supports the funding of a second engine for the F-35, something both Obama and Gates consider unnecessary. With all the talk of cuts, he said, "pretty soon, my concern is that we end up back with a bow and arrow."

Maybe not so soon. The Pentagon asked Congress for $708 billion, including war spending, this year. The bill hasn't passed yet, and McKeon fretted it "doesn't look like it will" before the current Congress adjourns. Factoring out the costs of the wars, the request was $18 billion over what Congress gave the Pentagon in 2009. And the program cuts in that budget attracted a lot of opposition on the Hill, even though they still amounted toa net increase in defense spending.

Even outside of the defense budget, McKeon indicated that the Obama defense agenda is in for a rough two years. He blasted the July 2011 date for beginning troop reductions from Afghanistan as "simply a mistake"; suggested that withdrawing fully from Iraq next year could "lose the war by default"; said closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility "puts Americans at risk"; and vowed to "legislate a framework" for future terrorist detentions 'that is guided by the law of armed conflict – not the criminal justice system."

But McKeon also pledged not to conduct "gotcha" oversight of administration policies, and said his committee's investigations "will be relevant to the war fighter and the protection of our homeland."

And McKeon added that it was time Congress re-debated and renewed the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, the basic law authorizing the war against al-Qaeda, since "probably almost half the Congress" currently serving wasn't around to vote on the decade-old bill. While he's proposed revising it to keep terrorism detainees out of federal courts, expect debate over any revision to go much further than that – like, perhaps explicitlyauthorizing drone strikes in places like Pakistan or Yemen.

The objective wouldn't be to "drop a new Authorization to Use Military Force, but to reaffirm and strengthen the existing one," says an aide to McKeon who requested anonymity, "recognizing that the enemy has changed geographically and evolved since 2001." Sounds like the shadow wars may get some sunshine.

Photo: Rep. Buck McKeon's Flickr page

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