Pentagon chief submits military’s ‘wish list’

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Monday submitted the military’s annual “wish lists” to lawmakers but warned he would not support the requests, unless Congress approved a larger Pentagon budget.

“Any extra program inserted into our budget submission will come at the expense of other programs we deemed more important, with ripple effects across the rest of the budget,” Carter said in a letter, which was seen by Reuters.

{mosads}President Obama’s budget request for fiscal 2016, which begins in October, asks Congress to eliminate sequestration by raising the ceiling on defense spending by $38 billion and on nondefense spending by $37 billion.

The “unfunded priorities” for each armed service include 12 F/A-18 fighter jets for the Navy, with a total price tag of $1.15 billion, and 14 F-35 fighter jets. Eight of those jets would be for the Navy, while six would go to the Marine Corps for around total cost of roughly $2.1 billion.

The Navy also requested for $65 million to purchase an additional Triton unmanned surveillance plane and $187 million to buy a pair of C-40A cargo planes. 

Meanwhile, the Army wants $200 million for PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement missiles and $975 million to boost cybersecurity at service installations in the U.S., Europe and South Korea.

The Air Force called on Congress to fully fund its $122 billion budget request for fiscal 2016.