Bryan fights move to cut Army guard

Ben Grove

Thursday, Dec. 9, 1999 | 11:51 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is launching a counterattack on a Department of Defense proposal to cut 12,500 Army National Guard soldiers. The department wants to free up money to modernize war machines.

The 367,000-soldier guard is being dispatched more and more to foreign hot spots like Bosnia and Kosovo as well as sites of natural disasters in this country, such as flooding North Carolina, Bryan said Wednesday.

"(The cut) strikes us as premature at this point," Bryan said.

Bryan said he favors modernizing the military but "not at the expense of a guard that is already the subject of reductions in size from where we were a few years ago."

Bryan offered no alternatives for cost savings. He wants to wait until a department review in 2001 before making budget changes that would free up money to modernize such equipment as tanks.

Bryan said Wednesday that he and Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., had obtained the signatures of 56 other senators, a majority, for a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen. The letter explains the senators' opposition to guard cuts.

The Defense Department is preparing its budget request for fiscal year 2001. The budget will be the subject of negotiation in Congress after it resumes Jan. 24.