Bob Gates to Congress: Keep My Name, And My Budget, Out Your Mouth

The final round of details on the fiscal 2010 defense budget will be released today, but as Colin Clark of DOD Buzz reports, members of Congress are sick of Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ omerta strategy to block the armed services and their Hill patrons from reversing his program cuts. Eleven of them, led by Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), sent Gates a letter expressing alarm that the secretary asked contributors to his budget deliberations to sign non-disclosure agreements. “By instituting a gag order on senior defense officials, the Administration is essentially preventing Members of Congress from asking the questions necessary to ensure our soldiers are equipped to do their jobs, and is prohibiting media and public awareness on important defense issues,” Forbes said in a statement.

The letter, signed exclusively by Republicans, puts it somewhat differently:

The Congress, and the Nation as a whole, can ill-afford our Nation’s senior military leadership to be forced to equivocate and be pedantic in so far as their professional military opinion is concerned, particularly as it relates to risk calculation and threat analysis associated with the priorities of the Department of Defense.

Or, translated from the Republican:

The GOP Congressional minority, and the party as a whole, can ill-afford to be denied statements from uniformed officers to exploit in our talking points as we seek to obstruct your budget reforms. The country has seen what our defense stewardship has wrought, and so our ability to wrap our parochial arguments in gold braid and polished patent leather must not be hindered at this delicate moment. You’ve heard about Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) speech today, right? Come on, this is all we’ve got here.