Training will not be cut; personnel reduction will bring military down to 2006 levels
In a budget-cutting move, the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) plans to lay off some 2,000 career soldiers and officers
over the next 18 months, the daily Haaretz reported Wednesday.
According to the army’s new plan, by the beginning of 2017 the
standing army will return to its post-Second Lebanon War dimensions.
Since the war in the summer of 2006, the IDF increased the size of
the standing army by some 700 commissioned and non-commissioned officers
every year. According to the army’s own figures, reducing the number of
career soldiers by 1,000 will save around $50 million a year.
The IDF’s 2015 budget is about $7.2 billion, one billion dollars more
than in 2014. The Defense Ministry had anticipated a much lower budget,
but last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip disrupted those plans.
Sources in the defense establishment say the funds freed up by the
personnel reductions will be used to replenish supplies. Training
exercises will not be cut, in a departure from the past several years.
Last year, for example, training was halted in the wake of IDF claims of
insufficient funds.
“In recent years the IDF faced a situation in which training was
affected. Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot took that off the table,” a
senior military figure said in a briefing for reporters. “That means
that first of all we train: We train in the air, we train in the water,
we train on land.”
As a result of this decision, the army will stop investing in the
development of weapons systems, while keeping up with existing
acquisitions schedules, such as the purchase of a number of Namer
(“leopard”) armored personnel carriers every year, Haaretz reported.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/65503-150325-israeli-military-to-lay-off-2-000-solders-and-officers
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