国际英语新闻:Pentagon seeks 495.6 bln dollars budget for 2015

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday presented to the Congress a 495.6-billion-dollar base budget for the Defense Department (DOD) in fiscal year 2015, as the Pentagon struggles to provide funds for defending homeland, building global defense and winning wars decisively amid mandatory budget cuts.

The proposed budget is only 400 million dollars less compared with that of 2014.

Meanwhile, the request continues the push for a smaller more agile force that is able to fight terrorists and counter violent extremists.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, previewed the budget request before the proposal. Both stressed the need for balance among personnel, readiness and modernization in the Pentagon's funding.

They also noted that the budget seeks to slow growth of pay, compensation and health care, but not to cut anything. These costs have been growing faster than in the civilian world, they explained.

As a result, while seeking a one percent military pay raise in fiscal 2015, the budget request would slow the growth of basic allowances for housing.

The budget continues to give prominence to the improved lethality, survivability and affordability of the next generation of weapons systems. This includes the next-generation bomber, new aircraft carriers, the joint strike fighter program, the KC-46 air- to-air refueling tanker and more.

As the nation is ending its longest war in Afghanistan, the army reduction proposals are also part of the 2015 budget request.

Among his proposals, Hagel plans to further reduce the size of U.S. Army to between 440,000 to 450,000 active-duty soldiers. This would mark the U.S. Army's smallest force in post-World War II era.

The active-duty troop level has already been slated to go down to 490,000 by 2015 from a peak of 570,000 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

While the topline is agreed upon, Congress will ultimately decide the overall figure on Pentagon spending in debate and negotiations over the coming months.