国际英语新闻：Britain's defense secretary to hold talks over defense cuts

LONDON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- British Defense Secretary Liam Fox made a lightning return to London on Tuesday from the midlands city of Birmingham, where his Conservative party is holding its annual conference, to hold urgent talks with senior defense chiefs over cuts in spending budgets which will be revealed later this month.

The Ministry of Defense (MOD) is holding a Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) which will outline cuts of between 10 and 20 percent in Britain's military spending.

Fox dashed back to London to talk to senior figures from all three armed services in advance of a key National Security Council meeting this week, at which many of the key decisions in the SDSR will be made.

The SDSR will see a radical recasting of Britain's military capabilities, and strategic objectives as it reduces the size of its armed forces.

Fox is also dealing with a planned overspend of about 38 billion pounds (about 56 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years, equivalent to the annual military budget. Foreign Secretary William Hague criticized the last Labor government for the overspend, and blamed them for reckless spending saying it was made up of "money which is not there, and in some cases never was there."

Prime Minister David Cameron agreed with Hague in a BBC radio interview on Tuesday, saying that the last Labor government had left the military budget in a mess.

He said: "We've been left with a mess. We have to clear up that mess in a way that makes some logical and strategic sense. Liam and I work on it very closely together and I think we will answer it."

However, the scale and pace of planned cuts leaked to the media has created a great deal of opposition to the SDSR, and the military is both well-connected and influential and has used all its influence to fight cuts.

A private letter from Fox to Cameron was leaked last week, leading to more front page headlines. Fox told Cameron that the " draconian" cuts planned would leave the armed forces weak at a time when it was still fighting a war in Afghanistan, and would seriously damage morale.

The letter heaped pressure on Cameron to intervene and to lessen the cuts, and both may yet happen.

Fox had been engaged in a public row with the Treasury, the finance ministry, over funding for the nuclear-missile carrying Trident submarine fleet of four vessels.