It appears I was, as Colin Powell famously said, too forward in my skis in my earlier post about defense-budget skirmishing between the Pentagon and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. Apparently there’s no letter going from Secretary Bob Gates to OMB pushing back against OMB’s $527-billion-excluding-the-cost-of-Iraq-and-Afghanistan ceiling for the fiscal 2010 budget. That’s not to say that Gates is totally on board with the ceiling. Navy Commander Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman, explains in an email:

I can confirm that our DoD budgeters are working with OMB on fiscal 2010 top line figures, but it is still premature to discuss any specific numbers. The Department is prepared to quickly and responsibly produce an official portion of the President’s budget request based on programmatic and strategic guidance from the Administration.  But let there be no doubt that the DoD leadership is committed to working with President Obama’s Administration and the Congress to ensure our troops have the resources they need to accomplish our nation’s military objectives.

Meanwhile, David Axe might just have started a rotisserie league for defense-budget butchery. Check out what Axe wants cut (groan) over at War Is Boing. He spares the Air Force’s F-22!

Crossposted to The Streak.