captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: the pentagon today outlined almost half a trillion dollars in budget cuts that would shrink the size of the u.s. military by eliminating ground forces, retiring ships and planes and delaying some new weapons. good evening, i'm jeffrey brown. >> warner: and i'm margaret warner. on the "newshour" tonight: deputy secretary of defense ashton carter walks us through the plan to reshape the military while trimming costs. >> brown: then, we turn to florida, where judy woodruff has an update on the g.o.p. presidential primary contest.

>> warner: kwame holman reports on a key component of president obama's re-election strategy highlighting the political gridlock in washington. >> president obama says this 112th congress-- as divided and partisan as it is-- should work with him on behalf of the american people. >> brown: ray suarez looks at today's jobs problem and the future role of manufacturing. >> warner: and, we have a conversation with veteran reporter tom edsall about the political landscape in a time of scarce resources. >> the fight now is a much more serious and brutal fight over basically sxhix and how do you cut up a smaller and smaller part? >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all

people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: the nation's military will have to make do with fewer soldiers and marines and wait longer for some next-generation weapons. that was the upshot today as defense department leaders laid out their plans for major savings. >> left, right, left. >> brown: as army drill sergeants work to get their soldiers in shape. pentagon leaders are working to get the military's budget in shape-- cutting nearly $490 billion dollars over the next 10 years-- a figure mandated by congress. >> we had to achieve savings

that would meet the requirement congress gave us. that is tough , real and something that will cause some pain but at same time we recognize defense has to play role in dealing with national deficit. >> brown: defense secretary leon panetta said the plan will shrink the number of army ground forces to 490,000 by 2017, down from a peak of 570,000 in 2010. also in the line of fire: two army brigades stationed in europe. and, the number of u.s. marines will be cut by 30,000 to 182,000 overall. in addition, the pentagon plans to delay production of at least 100 of the new, f-35 "lightning two" stealth attack planes. the air force, navy and marine corps had planned on replacing a portion of their aging aircraft fleets with those planes.

at the same time, the plan aims to achieve president obama's goal of restructuring the military to make it smaller but stronger, more tech-savvy and more mobile. to that end, some parts of the military's budget will be beefed up with a new focus on commando forces like the one that killed osama bin laden and on cybersecurity. overall, panetta and army general martin dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said they believe they've come up with a well-rounded package. >> special operating forces can only be special if there is a conventional force that allows. we got to do this all in balance and i am confident we have done that. >> brown: but for republican presidential contenders, the prospect of such cuts is a bridge too far as they said again in recent days. >> i will reverse obama defense cuts. i believe a strong america must and will lead the future. i'll insist on military so powerful that no one would ever

think of challenging it. >> defense budgets should not be politics, they shouldn't be a matter of playing games. they should be directly related to the amount of threat we have. >> brown: the hit to the pentagon could be even bigger down the road. up to $500 billion in additional defense cuts will automatically take effect next january, unless congress can agree on other ways to reduce the deficit. joining us now is deputy secretary of defense ashton carter who's been leading the budget review at the pentagon. i went through the broad vugs a few weeks ago with secretary panetta. let's start with the cuts to the size of the army and marines. if the argument is the dangers are still there, why do you feel you can make these cuts? >> well, first of all, they're not just cuts in the army and marine corps, there are cuts in the navy and air force as well. and there are things that are not getting cut and even increased. that's the whole point of proceeding strategically with this effort. >> brown: but starting with the

ground forces. >> so the ground forces are a particular case of the moment in history in which we find ourselves. the war in iraq is over. afghanistan is undergoing a transition and that means that the very large stabilization force that we built up for iraq and afghanistan is not something we're going to be needing in the next few years, particularly we'll need it through afghanistan and in a short while and it's not something we need to retain. we need to retain the know how of how to do counterinsurgency but we don't need to retain a large rotation force. if in the future we need once again to be in a counterinsurgency campaign we can mobilize ground forces and regenerate ground forces. so we don't need to keep those forces in being, why spend money on that? that's money we can be spending elsewhere on things that we do need everyday that are more

relevant. that's the kind of decision we've had to make throughout. >> brown: the criticism is we are weakening our-to-fight. so even with the cuts you can adjust or ramp up as necessary? >> not everything. in a long counterinsurgency campaign by definition it's long. you can build up again the ground forces. what's hard to build up quickly are ships, aircraft, special skill sets in the ground forces. by the way, we're going to continue to have a very large army and very large and powerful marine corps. these are cuts in the neighborhood of 10% to 15%. we need a strong army where the u.s. army needs to dominate any other army. >> brown: secretary panetta

talked about potential risks as you downsize and reshape the force, you also talked today about hard choices. so it's a huge budget you've got in all kinds of ways but give me an example of the detail here of a hard choice that you made and a risk that now is there. >> i'll give you an example that is highlighted in the document that we released today. it's an unmanned aerial vehicle, it's one we hope to have, we hope to retain. it's one of these weapons systems that has not been performing well, that's been overrunning and crossed and we decided to eliminate that, that's the kind of discipline we have to apply right along the line now the gap created by that capability will be filled by another aircraft that's almost as good. so it's not quite as good. those are the kinds of decisions we have to make throughout. >> brown: in the case of a major

most expensive weapons system i understand the joint strike fighter you're delaying it, right? you're delaying... but you're not cutting, you're not ending the process. >> brown: >> it's really not the budget driving our managerial behavior. the joint strike fighter isn't ready to go into full production. it will take a couple more years to do that so we are slowing the climb to full rate production for the joint strike fighter. that's for the simple reason we need to do more testing and development work on the joint strike fighter. we want the joint strike fighter in all three of its variants and i think we'll get it eventually but it's not ready to go into full rate production. >> brown: you also announced a process for starting a new ground of base closings, the so called brach process. now this has gone on for a long time, several iterations. it's always contentious, always very politically contentious and you still in some ways grapple

with the last round. now why call for a new round? >> how can we do otherwise. if we have unneeded basic structure that is tail that is not tooth, unneeded basing structure in our armed forces in a time when we're trying to deal with the deficit reduction national security imperative that we face. 40 can we not put on the table unneeded basing structure. >> have you identified... >> the whole point of the brach process is to identify corporateively with the congress and the communities involved basing structure that is excess to our need so to the public out there who wants a strong national defense, realizes it's still a dangerous world out there but realizes we don't have as much money as we thought we were going to have to spend on defense they want us to be making cuts where we're

essentially wasting money first before we begin cutting real capability excess basing structure is simple and we have to do it. i realize that it's always politically difficult, much of what we're doing is politically difficult. but we have no choice because national defense is an important imperative and we don't have all the money. >> you're also calling far brach-like process to review military pensions and it's a reminder that for all the focus on weapons systems and ground forces a lot of personnel issues are just like any private company, right? pensions, salaries, health care costs. so you're limited some salary increases and you're raising some health care fees does that possibly make the military a less attractive destination for them? >> i'd say people are more important to us even than

private enterprise. people are much more than our weapons systems. the thing that makes our military the best in the world and we want to make sure that we continue to recruit and retain all the excellent people, the kind we have now. therefore, we have not spared compensation entirely but compensation makes up a third of the defense budget. it's only receiving a ninth of the budget reductions. so... not zero but only a ninth. the areas that we're looking at specifically are military pay but not soon so that we give military people and their families time to adjust. there will be... in no year will pay be cut. that is matter of reducing the rate at which we were planning to raze mail tear pay. no pay cuts.

you mentioned health care. the changes that we're proposing in health care are mostly for retirees and mostly for younger retirees who may be employed in any event and you mentioned the retirement commission. you know, retirement is a very serious, very complicated matter we did not feel that we knew enough about it to make a proposal this time. the president has suggested a commission to work on it. when that commission makes proposals, all the proposals will be grandfathered, they won't affect anybody that's now in service. >> brown: all of this goes into the budget process here. you said it's going to be contentious. you've ironed out the proposal you've heard candidates taking shots. we're starting to get reaction from the hill. you flex to be a fight over all

of this? >> well, we're trying to manage the realities of the budget control act. it was passed by the congress, both parties, both houses. national defense isn't partisan matter, it's something that touches us all. we're just trying to be as honest and straightforward and analytical as we can so that we make this huge adjustment which is forced on us by the budget control act in the most sensible way so that has the least impact on our national defense. it's still a dangerous world. >> brown: thank you so much. >> thanks. >> warner: still to come on the "newshour": the republican battle in florida; running against congress; manufacturing's future in the u.s. and a conversation on austerity and politics. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: pirates in

somalia threatened today to kill an american hostage, if the u.s. attempts to free him. the warning followed a navy seal raid that rescued another american and a dane, who had been held since october. the latest u.s. captive was abducted on saturday. his captors said today he's being moved frequently to discourage a new raid. one pirate said, "if they try again, we will all die together." in syria, government forces stormed a town just outside damascus, and fighting raged with army defectors. it happened in douma, a flashpoint suburb of the capital. troops went house to house, and activists said at least 200 people were detained. in downtown damascus, only ten miles away, thousands of pro-government backers flooded the streets in a show of support for president, bashar al-assad. democrats in the u.s. senate have blocked a republican effort to bar president obama from raising the nation's debt limit. the vote today was largely along party lines. the national debt currently stands at $15.2 trillion. the increase would raise it by another $1.2 trillion. the house voted against the increase last week. on wall street, stocks fell as lagging home sales undercut an early rally. the dow jones industrial average lost 22 points to close at 12,734.

the nasdaq fell 13 points to close at 2,805. the obama administration has released new rules aimed at restoring national forests. agriculture secretary tom