Pentagon

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department presented President Clinton yesterday with a plan to save 12,000 military jobs in vote-rich California, but it did not seek to reverse the recent recommendation to close six installations in Maryland.After reviewing the proposals of the base-closing commission, Defense Secretary William J. Perry suggested to Mr. Clinton how he could protect the highly trained work force at McClellan Air Force Base in California.Such a move would bolster his political standing in a state that he probably needs to carry to win re-election next year.

WASHINGTON -- One of the major reasons the U.S. intervention in Iraq is in trouble is that the Defense Department seized responsibility for everything - from combat to security to governance to reconstruction. If we ever do an Iraq again, or keep it from happening, this needs to change, given the experience in that country. Looking at the Bush administration's proposed budget, it is not clear the lesson has been learned. The Pentagon is still on steroids, with 85 percent of the funding for national security, including Iraq.

Pentagon officials say they will return to Capitol Hill this year to seek legislation exempting the military from key environmental laws. The military will renew arguments that laws protecting the air, endangered species and public health are hurting its ability to train troops for combat. Last year, a skeptical Congress rejected all but one of the nine proposed exemptions. But with Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House, the Pentagon is expected to have an easier time making its case.

Collapse of the Soviet Union and recession-generated pressures at home are combining to force new cutbacks in the U.S. defense structure -- the second in as many years. Instead of getting $291 billion for the military establishment in the next fiscal year, the Pentagon will probably have to make do with $280 billion, or less. This would be but the first installment of a five-year drawdown totaling $50 billion if President Bush has his way, or as much as $120 billion or even $150 billion if liberal Democrats prevail.

Washington -- Four developments in a week's time have further borne out predictions of turmoil and instability in the wake of the Cold War, and warnings against pell-mell demobilization of defenses: In Brussels, the North Atlantic Alliance gave its first, and possibly fateful, consideration to using NATO forces to back peace-making efforts in the fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the Caucasus. A North Korean ship docked in a re-arming Iran's port of Bandar Abbas with what was thought to be a load of Scud-C missiles -- longer-range versions of Scuds that Iraq used in the Gulf war. It escaped challenge by U.S. Navy ships.

WASHINGTON -- One of the less-remarked inanities in government is the bountiful budget still assigned to military research, though the United States holds an unassailable lead in technology for war and no other country is a serious competitor.In this troubled and uncertain world, there's no argument against the case for the best in armaments. But when the United States possesses unchallenged superiority in advanced weaponry, why are we still financing military research at levels little below the height of the Cold War?

WASHINGTON -- A Pentagon database that tracked information on incidents including peaceful war protests improperly retained reports that should have been removed from the system, according to an internal review. The Defense Department set up the database in May 2003 as a way to formally record possible terrorist-related activities inside the United States - such as suspicious surveillance of government buildings - and to disseminate the information to military and law enforcement agencies.

WASHINGTON -- Morton H. Halperin, President Clinton's embattled choice to head a new Pentagon position for peacekeeping policy, has withdrawn his name for the job, administration officials said yesterday.The nomination of Mr. Halperin, a 55-year-old former director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, stirred a degree of passions unusual for a mid-level position, as conservatives attacked his liberal positions. Mr. Halperin had reversed his initial support of the Vietnam War, fought with the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandals and criticized many U.S. spying operations abroad.

WASHINGTON -- By spelling out potential foreign conflicts that might draw U.S. forces into combat, the Bush administration is headed for confrontation with a skeptical Congress over national security assumptions at the end of the Cold War, analysts and congressional aides said yesterday.In recent months, congressional leaders like Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, have pressed the Pentagon to provide its analysis of specific threats to U.S. security in coming years, but the Pentagon leadership has declined.

The expected confirmation of retired Navy Adm. Mike McConnell as director of national intelligence will complete the Pentagon's takeover of the intelligence community and end any pretense of civilian influence, let alone control, of that community. Flag officers are in control of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center as well as the key position of undersecretary of defense for intelligence. The militarization of intelligence is a reversal of the kind of community that President Harry Truman began to create 60 years ago and will complicate efforts to rebuild the nation's strategic intelligence capabilities.