Center Offers Details and Analysis of Obama Administration's Defense Budget

In response to the Obama administration's
release of its Fiscal Year 2010 Pentagon Spending Request, the Center for Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation released today a detailed budget analysis.

The
complete report is available online.

Consistent with the budget
blueprints released on March 2, the Administration is requesting $533.8 billion
for the Department of Defense base budget and $130 billion for "Overseas
Contingency Operations" for the wars in
Iraq
and

Afghanistan.
These numbers do not include funding for nuclear weapons through the Department
of Energy or miscellaneous non-DOD defense costs, which totaled approximately
$23 billion in FY 2009.

Adjusted for inflation, the
$533.8 billion request is $9 billion, or 1.7 percent, more than Congress
approved for the Defense Department for FY 2009.

"The Obama administration's budget request continues the pattern of
growth in defense spending, though notably at a lower rate than we saw during
the years of the Bush administration," said Chris Hellman, military policy
fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

The $130 billion in funding
for the wars in
Iraq and

Afghanistan
marks the first time the war costs have been a part of the White House's annual
budget request.

"Until now, the government has funded military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan through special supplemental appropriations packages," Hellman
added. "The Obama administration
identified with its first supplemental request that it would also be the administration's
last. The inclusion of war funding up front is a welcome change and offers
opportunity for greater transparency and oversight of our defense spending
priorities."

The
Center's complete analysis of the budget request, which also explores details
on the funding of specific weapons programs, is available online.