Gates cuts U.S. defence spending

By Jim Wolf and Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States would trim missile-defence spending, cancel multibillion-dollar weapons programs but buy more arms for fighting insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, under a 2010 budget plan.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates proposed on Monday an overhaul of the world's most powerful military arsenal, including cancelling a $13 billion (8.9 billion pound) presidential helicopter program that President Barack Obama has described as an example of Pentagon procurement "gone amok.

Gates would end production of Lockheed Martin's F-22, the premier U.S. fighter jet, at the 187 now delivered or in the pipeline. But Lockheed gets a boost with accelerated funding of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

At a Pentagon briefing, Gates said the United States had the defences it needed for now to protect from a long-range ballistic missile of the type that North Korea fired on Sunday.

"It actually would not have changed it at all," he said when asked whether a "successful" test-firing would have changed his views on spending. "We're in a pretty good place in terms of -- with respect to the rogue missile -- rogue country missile threat," he said.

The defence proposals must still become part of Obama's formal budget submission to Congress. Lawmakers have the final say on spending and were already gearing up to alter the plan.

Gates said he would kill the vehicle leg of the Army's Future Combat Systems, a Boeing-led flagship of U.S. Army modernization built around an advanced digital network.

The Defence Department would review requirements for the vehicles in light of changing U.S. military needs and seek bids for the revamped requirements later.