Expect cuts to defense programs, Gates testifies

Defense spending, particularly for expensive new weapons such as the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship and the F-35 fighter jet, is on the way down and the Obama administration is preparing to make "hard choices" to end programs that exceed their budgets, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today.

"The spigot of defense funding opened by 9/11 is closing," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The demands of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the nation's economic crisis, require military planners to separate "those things that are desirable from those things that are truly needed" in the way of new weapons, Gates added.

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