Trying an End Run Around the Guard: Maj. Gen. Michael Haugen, the commander of North Dakota’s National Guard, like other Guardsmen, is having trouble rationalizing Pentagon budget woes with the proposed plan to cut the Army Guard and Air Guard. Haugen tells the Associated Press that the Pentagon is trying “to do BRAC by another name.” He wants the Guard to “guide [DOD] into the smart budget.” North Dakota lawmakers are among those who have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld protesting Guard reductions.
The Pentagon’s cost estimate for the Iran War has risen to $37.5 billion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional committee July 21—and without emergency supplemental funding, the military will have to “curtail” training to cover those costs, he added.