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09-01-09 Pentagon budget to remain sketchy for months

The first task for Robert Hale,if he is confirmed as the Pentagon's new finance chief,will be to write a 2010 defense budget.His predecessor,acting defense comptroller Douglas Brook,didn't,on instructions from the White House.Instead of the usual annual spending plan that's big enough to fill several books,on Feb. 2 the U.S. Defense Department is expected to send Congress a budget outline that likely won't fill more than a handful of pages.It will include a "top line," or outgoing President George W. Bush's proposed 2010 defense spending total - about $587 billion.And it may include totals for such categories as procurement,research and development,personnel.Then,according to congressional staffers,the Defense Department,under marching orders from incoming President Barack Obama,will spend two months or so drafting the real 2010 defense budget.It won't arrive on Capitol Hill until April,a House staffer said.Last fall,a senior Pentagon official said the Bush administration was preparing a 2010 budget outline that would increase defense spending by $60 billion.Bradley Berkson,the Pentagon's director of program analysis and evaluation,said the increase is needed to pay for more troops being added to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.A $60 billion increase would boost the "base" defense budget to about $587 billion for 2010.Additional funding - probably more than $100 billion - would be needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan