Gates optimistic on 2010 U.S. defense budget success

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview aired on Sunday that he is optimistic his recommendations for overhauling defense spending can survive an upcoming budget fight in Congress.

Gates told CNN that he has been surprised by the limited scope of criticism aimed so far at his recommendations for the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010, which begins October 1, and had heard some "important voices raised in support."

"I'm relatively optimistic, actually," he said in the interview, which was taped last week. "I think we've presented, as one news magazine referred to it, a radically sane set of proposals. They don't represent a cut, and where we have eliminated one program, you have added to others."

Gates is recommending a $534 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2010 as part of the $3.4 trillion federal budget plan approved by Congress on Wednesday.

The defense budget recommendations do not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader U.S. war on terrorism.

A more detailed 2010 budget proposal is expected to arrive as early as this week on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers decide what will, and will not be, included in the final version.

Gates, backed by the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, scored an initial victory last week in his drive to rein in congressional moves to add funding for specific weapons to the war spending budget, a move that may signal big changes in the defense procurement process, analysts said.

Representative John Murtha, who heads the House of Representatives Appropriations defense subcommittee, agreed not to add a provision to a 2009 war spending bill that required the Pentagon to divide a $35 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers between Boeing Co and a team including Northrop Grumman Corp and Europe's EADS.

Gates has argued forcefully against dividing the tanker work between those companies, saying it would add $7 billion in extra development, logistics and operations costs.