OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, May 10 (OneWorld) - The Pentagon should cut billions of dollars from major weapons programs and plow the money into homeland security initiatives, said a new report with far-reaching implications not only for the federal budget but also for dozens of private defense contractors.

Washington-based think tanks the Center for Defense Information and the Foreign Policy in Focus project recommended major investments to protect public transit and prepare health systems to cope with potential biological or chemical attacks on U.S. soil.

''Despite promises of a comprehensive approach to fighting terrorism, the Bush administration has concentrated its resources overwhelmingly on its military forces, at the expense of other security tools,'' said the report, released Tuesday.

''The Bush military budget is being spent on a force structure that does not match today's security challenges, because it is designed for Cold War-style large-scale conventional challenges that we no longer face,'' it added.

The report recommended major cuts for high-profile Pentagon programs including the Army's Future Combat Systems modernization program, the DD(X) naval destroyer, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the F/A-22 Raptor.

If implemented, the report's recommendations would have a major impact on business for leading defense contractors including Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., General Dynamics Corp., and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Increased homeland security spending also would affect the same firms but also dozens of other large and small companies specializing in intelligence, counter-terrorism, and emergency-response goods and services.

In all, the report recommended cutting $53.1 billion from military spending and spending $40.5 billion more on international affairs and homeland security operations. It called for a four-to-one ratio of spending on military programs to all other security spending, down from the seven-to-one proposed in President George W. Bush's budget for fiscal year 2006, which begins Oct. 1, 2005.

The report, which was funded by private philanthropies and endorsed by a task force made up of retired military officers and veteran defense analysts, also called for an additional $10 billion for foreign aid and recommended specific changes in U.S. development policy.

Report co-author Miriam Pemberton of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, said she expected the report to resonate with business leaders as well as policymakers.

''Policymakers, experts, and business leaders from across the political spectrum have called for a more balanced approach to terrorism and global security,'' Pemberton said in a statement. ''The Unified Security Budget provides the road map and budget specifics on how we make that happen.''

The report said ballooning budget deficits ''have finally begun to make security budget priorities a permissible topic of conversation among lawmakers'' nearly four years after debate was stifled by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The recommendations also evoked a recent poll in which members of the U.S. public said that, given the chance, they would significantly change next year's federal budget, reversing key Bush administration proposals.

Provided with details of the major areas of Bush's discretionary budget for fiscal 2006, around two-thirds of those surveyed said they would cut spending on large-scale Cold War-style capabilities and use the money to reduce the budget deficit, said the poll released in March by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes.

Republicans and Democrats alike would take the budget axe to spending on defense and on Iraq and Afghanistan, channeling the money into domestic priorities including education, job training, veterans, and reducing U.S. reliance on oil, the poll said.

Respondents also would increase spending on the means by which the United States projects ''soft power'' overseas. These include foreign aid, U.N. peacekeeping, and diplomacy.

Defense would sustain the deepest cuts. Of nearly 1,200 U.S. adults surveyed, 65 percent said they would reduce spending by an average of 31 percent or the equivalent of around 134 billion dollars.

Homeland security, however, would receive a robust average boost of 10.5 billion dollars or 38 percent, although only 41 percent of respondents favored increases.

As respondents had proposed large defense cuts, they were asked what areas they would want to axe. Majorities said they would trim the U.S. capability for large-scale nuclear wars, the number of nuclear weapons, and spending on developing new nuclear weapons.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents also proposed reducing U.S. capabilities to fight large-scale naval and land wars and said they would cut spending on new types of naval destroyers, submarines, and bombers.

Respondents preserved spending for troops including on salaries, maintaining the overall number of military personnel, and developing new equipment for infantry and Marines.

Tuesdays' report also urged action to plug gaps in protective equipment issued to U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.