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US Defense Secretary to Urge Bush to Drop Two-War Strategy
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday he will recommend President George W. Bush that the military be sized and arranged to win decisively in one major regional conflict rather than two.
Such a change would reduce substantially the forces needed for national strategy, with acceptable risk to U.S. security, Rumsfeld said at a press conference at the Pentagon.
He said he had not yet decided on any cuts in troops or weapons programs.
However, Rumsfeld said the services themselves have been asked to determine if they need to get smaller in order to stay within their budgets while meeting Pentagon's other priorities. Those priorities include preparing troops to face ballistic missile threats.
Rumsfeld said that in recent years the Pentagon has been " living a lie" because it lacks the forces to carry out the two-war requirement but would not admit it.
"I'm personally more comfortable" with a one-war strategy, Rumsfeld said. If a second conflict were to break out at the same time, U.S. forces still would be able to win, but not decisively, he claimed.
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