The Pentagon handed down 11th-hour budget cuts after Christmas last week, slashing $4 billion from the Army and Navy and plowing $3.5 billion into a wide range of new initiatives, many of which are designed to support combatant commanders.

Tina Jonas, the Pentagon's comptroller, on Dec. 28 signed program budget decision 723, which makes small adjustments to hundreds of programs between fiscal years 2006 and 2011, as well as a few large moves including an increase of about $2.5 billion for fuel costs.

In total, PBD 723 trims $72 million from fiscal year 2006 and increases spending between FY-07 and FY-11 by $804 million, according to sources familiar with it.

Between FY-07 and FY-11, the Army absorbs a $2.1 billion reduction and the Navy takes a $2.2 billion hit. Air Force accounts are increased by $1.1 billion, most of which is to pay for fuel.

Defense-wide programs, including numerous joint efforts, receive a $2.4 billion boost in the budget decision.

Major billpayers for the Army include trucks and tracked vehicles the service had earmarked for equipping its floating preposition stocks. Specifically, the document cancels plans to increase the number of its Afloat Prepositioned brigade combat sets from two to three, which allows the service to “avoid the cost of modernizing and equipping Army units,” it states.

Navy military construction accounts are cut by several hundred million dollars in the later years covered by the budget decision, although the service receives new money for military construction in the early years, sources said.

Also tapped are a wide range of Marine Corps procurement accounts.

Additionally, the Joint Strike Fighter engine program is slashed by $100 million in FY-07, the document says.

Among other major programs affected by the budget decision is the Airborne Laser. According to the PBD, the Air Force has been directed to delay ABL procurement to “reflect changes” in research and development.

Sources familiar with the 49-page document said the cuts to the Army and Navy are designed to offset spending on a range of new efforts for combatant commanders, including funding for the Marine Corps' new contribution to U.S. Special Operations Command and $112 million to resource U.S. Strategic Command's new responsibility for combating weapons of mass destruction.

More than $38.5 million is earmarked to continue a program that produces a daily report on Arabic language media for U.S. leaders and $62.9 million is set aside to fund homeland defense initiatives. The budget action also funds the Pentagon's support of the new Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in the Homeland Security Department.

Service officials forced to whittle programs said the timing of PBD 723 surprised them.

“How is it that we end up with a string of PBDs at the last minute to pay for things that you'd think we've known about for months?” said one service official frustrated by the last-minute nature of the cuts. “When the Office of the Secretary of Defense waits until the 11th hour to issue those things, then there is very little time to determine if there are any alternatives or for the services to come back and fully understand and adjust their program comprehensively. What they're doing now is just slicing programs to generate the required savings.”

This budget action comes as the Defense Department is in the final hours of preparing its mammoth annual spending request for fiscal year 2007, which is due to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Jan. 10. Pentagon officials are working to finalize their defense spending proposal by Friday, Pentagon officials said.