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Were fighting two wars. joining me now, colonel lawrence wilkerson, currently the pamela haraman visiting professor at the college of william and mary. professor general, welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me, mike. >> thank you, colonel. cheney oversaw drastic cuts to the defense budget during his time as defense secretary. why is he lobbying for more military spending. is it about helping out his defense contractor buddies? >> the very first time i ever heard about dick cheney, a congressman told me he never met a defense program he didn't love. the statistics you threw out there at t...

Joining me now, colonel lawrence wilkerson, currently the pamela haraman visiting professor at the college of william and mary. professor general, welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me, mike. >> thank you, colonel. cheney oversaw drastic cuts to the defense budget during his time as defense secretary. why is he lobbying for more military spending. is it about helping out his defense contractor buddies? >> the very first time i ever heard about dick cheney, a congressman told me he never met a defense program he didn't love. the statistics you threw out there at the beginning of your spi...

Billion a year. in the first year you'd take us down to $472 billion for the core pentagon program, and that would be about the equivalent of 2006-2007, which incidentally was one of the highest spending years since world war ii, including all of the cold war. we'd only be cutting about 14%. dick cheney myself, and my boss colin powell at the time and george h.w. bush cut about 25%. this is not a draconian cut, even if it's done by sequestration. >> you've warned about the industrial complex, nice turn of phrase there. is there any way out of it. >> well, dwight eisenhower is the man we should...

Levels levels which is $472 billion for a military budget and that soup like -- sounds like a lot of money. >>guest: can you not look at the budget in terms of the total amount but in terms of the capabilities it provides. also, what has happened. should the 20 department budget be on the table given financial crisis of the country? of course. and the leaders in. department realize that but the fact is, secretary gates before he left took $269 billion out of the defense department budget for efficiency and cut four junior programs stopping the f22, and the marine amphibious vehicle and cut a n...