By ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security Writer
OTTAWA, Canada – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is accusing Congress of dumping a “crisis on my doorstep” by holding the Pentagon to last year’s spending levels and creating a potential $23 billion gap that could weaken a wartime military.
“That’s how you hollow out a military,” Gates said Thursday.
Gates said it looks increasingly likely that Congress will not act on the Pentagon’s 2011 budget request even as lawmakers argue over Gates’ proposal to slow the rate of increase in defense spending next year and freeze it by 2015.