The Pentgono announced cuts of 60,000 million euros

The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, announced yesterday that put the Pentagon budget cuts totaling 78,000 million dollars (about 60,000 million euros) over the next five years. This will be the first contraction of the U.S. military budget since the occurrence of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, after the nation launched two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Gates explained that the two branches of the Pentagon that will be most affected will be the Army and Marines. The first body will lose 40,000 soldiers, and the second, 20,000. "Since I took up my post four years ago, I have always said that it is necessary to maintain the structure of our armed forces, while maintaining growth in our budget that is realistic and modest in its long-term forecasts, said at a press conference the head of the Pentagon, a Republican who has served under Presidents George W.

Bush and Barack Obama. "But the poor condition of the finances of this country, and the threat this poses to U.S. credibility and influence in the world, will accrue only if the U.S. government does not order in their accounts." Combat vehicles Marines lost one of the projects which have fought over in recent years: the 573 expeditionary combat vehicles, whose assembly would cost U.S.

$ 13,000 million (10,000 million euros) and whose purpose would be mainly to transport troops from their ships to land in a more rapid and secure amphibious assault vehicles that are used now. "I know it's a controversial decision," said Gates. "But building them would have meant to cancel the rest of the budget for the Marines to build other vehicles." Gates made his announcement coincide with the day on which the new Republican majority took control of the House of Representatives, one of the two branches of Congress.

The Conservatives have promised new laws to control federal government spending, whose public debt has already reached $ 14 billion (10.7 billion euros). A year ago the Government estimated that the cost of the wars in Iraq (which Obama adjourned in August) and Afghanistan now exceeds one trillion dollars.

Regardless of the cost of the wars, the Pentagon's budget in fiscal year 2011 is 708,000 million dollars (543,000 million euros). These are the first concrete cuts in a plan in which the leadership of the Pentagon aims to save 100,000 million dollars (76,800 million euros) over the next five years to reduce a budget overrun by the two armed conflicts that Obama is committed to finish.

In August, Gates and ordered the dismantling of the Joint Operations Unit in Norfolk, Virginia. The closure led to the elimination of 2,800 positions and 3,000 contracted external military.

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