Who's in charge?: Defense spending raises a question

President Barack Obama's position on defense spending is hard to understand -- or perhaps, misleading -- at the moment.

His administration's discussion last month of the new, fiscal year 2010 defense budget pointed to cuts of expensive programs the Pentagon wanted and didn't get, such as the F-22 fighter jet and missile defense. At the same time, the 2009 total stood at $654 billion and the 2010 sum announced Oct. 28 was $680 billion, $26 billion more than the year before, a 4 percent increase, not a cut.

A second, loudly trumpeted point of the Obama FY '10 proposal was that, rather than leaving out the portion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as was the practice during the administration of President George W. Bush, the new number includes it, at $130 billion. It was claimed that was all. There won't be the regular Pentagon requests for supplemental funding, including one for $83.4 billion this April, that characterized previous defense spending.

Then, just one week later, on Nov. 4, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, in a speech before the National Press Club reminiscent of U.S. Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's lobbying for more troops, said he imagined that the Pentagon would levy a "requirement" for more money for the two wars, on top of the $680 billion budget. Speculation runs that the military will ask for a further $40 billion or $50 billion. Adm. Mullen's statement would appear to be in direct contradiction of the White House contention of the week before.

The conflict raises the obvious question of who's in charge, the president or the generals, America's civilian or its military leadership? Is FY 2010 defense spending going to be $680 billion or $720 billion? And since when has a Pentagon request for money, normally made through the White House to Congress, become a requirement?