Webb wants hearing on Va. military cuts

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (D) Monday called for the Senate Committee on Armed Services to hold hearings on Defense Secretary Robert Gates' decision to shutter the Joint Forces Command, a military installation employing more than 6,000 in Hampton Roads.

"The requested hearing should address the full scope of the initiatives that Secretary Gates announced, to include the significant growth in the size of the DoD and military departments' staffs from the department's creation until the present day," Webb wrote in his letter. "Although many of the Secretary's directed actions appear to be well within his authority, others are more properly addressed as part of the normal budgeting and programming cycle."

Webb, a committee member and chairman of the personnel subcommittee, called Gates's lack of prior consultation with Congress on his recommendations "deeply troubling."

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