New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will detail a plan today to rebuild American diplomacy while reshaping the U.S. military with 50,000 additional troops and slashing $57 billion annually from Pentagon weapons programs.

Richardson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, said in remarks prepared for delivery at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., that America must face the reality that global threats have changed. Great dangers come not just from hostile nations, but from hostile individuals and failed states, as well as underlying social and economic trends, such as the nation's reliance on fossil fuels, he said.

"Restoring American leadership means abandoning rogue cowboy diplomacy. It means giving up the idea of stubbornness as a foreign policy," he said. "It means restoring those American principles which once allowed us to build the alliances which defeated the Nazis and crumbled the Soviet Union."

Richardson said Wednesday in an interview with The Des Moines Register that he wants to reduce the Pentagon's budget and modernize the military by eliminating what he describes as Cold War weapons systems designed to fight a long extinct Soviet empire.

Some of the savings would be used to bolster the military, but most of the money would be redirected to domestic programs, such as health care and education, he said.

"In an age of terrorism, the greatest nuclear threat will come not on a missile, but rather in a suitcase or a cargo hull," he said. "To meet the danger of nuclear terrorism, we need to reduce the number of weapons in the world, and we need to consolidate and secure fissile material around the globe."

Richardson, a former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, proposes to strengthen and expand the military by promoting skills needed for counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and training foreign militaries. He called for expanding the military by 50,000 members, including two new active-duty Army divisions and one more active-duty Marine division. In addition, he would stop using private contractors to provide security in war zones.

Richardson has proposed defense spending cuts ranging from reducing nuclear weapons programs to scrapping production of Virginia-class submarines, which he contends do not offer significant improvements over existing Los Angeles class subs. He also favors canceling production of the Marine Corps V22 Osprey aircraft and the Air

Force C130J Hercules aircraft, while scaling back production of F35 Joint Strike Fighter and F22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft.

Richardson 's plan for reductions in military spending was praised by Peggy Huppert, executive director of Iowans for Sensible Priorities, an activist group that favors cutting the Pentagon budget while spending more on programs such as education, health care and infrastructure.

"We think it's wonderful," Huppert said of Richardson's plan. "It's the most comprehensive and definitive statement from a campaign so far."

Richardson's plan for military budget cuts gets a thumbs-down from Buzz Patterson, a retired Air Force colonel who is vice chairman of Move America Forward, a national group that held a Des Moines rally last month to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan . Patterson, who was President Clinton's senior military aide from 1996 to 1998, recently authored a book, "War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy the Military and Lose the War on Terror."

I just think this is the wrong time for this kind of thing, and I think Richardson is going down the wrong path," Patterson said.

Patterson said Richardson's characterization of the proposed cuts as affecting Cold War military programs shows he is out of touch with modern defense issues. Many of these programs are needed to battle terrorists, including the Marine Corps' V22 Osprey, which is needed to transport U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and other combat zones, he said.

The nation also faces a possible return to the Cold War against Russia, he added.

 

Reporter William Petroski can be reached at (515) 2848547 or bpetroski@dmreg.com

 

Proposed reductions in military spending

Here are some of the cuts in military spending proposed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination:

$ 8 billion from scaling back the national defense missile program, plus another $8 billion from reducing the nation's nuclear posture to 600 deployed warheads with 400 in reserve.

$ 7 billion by reducing Pentagon research spending, which Richardson said has increased from $48 billion to $75 billion in real dollars since 2001.

$ 5 billion from eliminating the Reliable Replacement Warhead and Complex 2030 programs to develop new nuclear weapons and by negotiating further reductions in nuclear forces with the Russians to 1,000 missiles or fewer.

$ 7 billion by eliminating Pentagon earmarks and managing the defense department's bureaucracy more efficiently. Last year alone, there were nearly 3,000 "pork barrel" projects in the defense budget, totaling $15 billion, he said.

$ 2.4 billion from canceling production of the V22 Osprey aircraft, which has been plagued by cost overruns and technical problems.

In addition, $3.6 billion from reducing the number of F22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft the military plans to buy, plus $1.6 billion from canceling production of the C130J aircraft.

Also, $4.1 billion from reducing the number of F35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be purchased.

$ 2.7 billion from canceling the Virginia-class submarine program, which Richardson said does not offer significant improvements over existing Los Angeles-class submarines.