Pentagon Plans 15-Year, $90-Billion ‘Star Wars’ Budget, Study Reports
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WASHINGTON — The Defense Department plans to spend about $90 billion over the next 15 years on the Strategic Defense Initiative, congressional investigators said Friday.
The General Accounting Office, which based its results on the department’s estimates, also found that spending on the program will peak between fiscal 1995 and fiscal 2000 at about $7 billion a year.
The overall costs take into account the Bush Administration’s scaled-down version of SDI, known as “Star Wars,” but do not account for the limited defense system Congress and the Pentagon agreed upon last year.
Maj. Mike Doble, a spokesman for the SDI organization, said Friday the department had not seen the report.
Spending on SDI peaks at $6.97 billion in fiscal 2000, the report said. In comparison, the Bush Administration has requested $5.4 billion for SDI in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. This year, the SDI budget totals $4.1 billion, its largest budget ever.
Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, requested the GAO study.
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