Gordon Adams asks defense budget hawks to get their facts straight:
[Bob] Gates has not cut $330 billion from defense. When he announced hardware cuts, he said the out-year savings were estimated at $330 billion, but he didn't cut a nickel from the projected defense budgets; he wants, as he has clearly said, to use those savings for other investments, not give them back to the taxpayer. And the figure is way too big, anyway, because he terminated the F-22 and the C-17 cargo plane when neither one of them was in the long-term budget... And as for his general support for "significant cuts?" Well, no. Gates has a plan to find $100 billion over the next four years in "efficiency savings," which he announced in August. But, again, he has been clear that these will not cut the defense budget, he wants to keep them to plow back into forces and other investments, while ensuring the DOD budget continues to grow.