Exclusive - Former Air Force secretary to lead Pentagon efficiency review

U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley answers questions during the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington, in this December 14, 2009 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Stelios Varias/Files

WASHINGTON | Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:41pm BST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Air Force Secretary Michael Donley will lead a major review of the Pentagon's organizational structure aimed at cutting headquarters costs by almost $40 billion (25 billion pounds) through fiscal year 2023, according to a document signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

Carter told key Pentagon officials in a memo dated Monday that he had asked Donley to submit his findings and recommendations for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's consideration by the end of September, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Carter announced plans to bring in an outside expert last month when he unveiled the results of a four-month strategic review and announced plans to cut Pentagon headquarters costs by 20 percent.

At the time, he said implementing such cuts could be very challenging and the Pentagon needed an outside expert who was "deeply knowledgeable about the defense enterprise and eminently qualified to direct implementation of the ... reductions."

The U.S. military is grappling with massive mandatory spending cuts that could reduce the Pentagon's overall budget by $500 billion in the next decade, on top of $487 billion in cuts already planned.

Donley retired as the top civilian leading the Air Force at the end of June. He worked closely with Carter, who served as the Pentagon's acquisition chief before moving into his current job, when they managed a controversial competition to buy new refuelling planes for the Air Force.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Bill Trott)

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The Wolverine 3D review: Hugh Jackman shows he's still a force of nature

By Brian Viner

PUBLISHED: 21:06 GMT, 25 July 2013 | UPDATED: 23:21 GMT, 8 August 2013

The Wolverine 3D (12A)

Verdict: The Wolvering cometh - again

Rating:

The atomic bombing of Nagasaki seems more likely to conclude an action film than begin it, but then The Wolverine, the latest in the Marvel Comics-inspired X-Men series, is nothing if not ambitious. 

And confounding my own lacklustre expectations, the ambition pays off.

This represents a vast improvement on the last outing for Hugh Jackman’s retractable-clawed mutant, in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It is really rather good.

Hugh Jackman's retractable claws are back for a sharp, entertaining installment

Naturally, it comes chock-full of stuff you shouldn’t try at home, starting with the use of a manhole-cover to protect a chap from a nuclear explosion.

The protected man is a Japanese soldier, who takes advantage of his good fortune to build another kind of fortune, becoming his country’s richest business mogul, and sending from his death bed — the most high-tech death bed you’ve ever seen, I might add — for his war-time saviour.

This, of course, is the immortal and ageless Wolverine, otherwise known as Logan, who is holed up in the back of the American beyond, with not much to do except exact revenge on hunters for using poison-tipped arrows against grizzly bears.

But when a feisty Japanese girl (Rila Fukushima) turns up and invites him to meet the old man he saved in Nagasaki, the real fun begins.

In Japan, Logan is sucked into a fight for control of the old man’s business empire, involving his ruthless son and sexy granddaughter, not to mention a villainess (Svetlana Khodchenkova) who appears to have even greater superpowers than our hero, not least a kind of killer halitosis. 

Inevitably, this being the Far East, the battle for supremacy also includes plenty of martial arts, which might be as good a way as any to mark the anniversary of Bruce Lee’s death, 40 years ago last week.

All these action sequences are splendidly done, in particular a thrilling fight on top of a 300mph bullet train.

The dialogue may be lacking in finesse but the action and chase scenes are thrilling

The director is James Mangold, better known for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line than for anything featuring superheroes, but here he gets to play with actual rings of fire, and enjoys himself hugely.

As for Jackman, he looks more than ever like mid-period Clint Eastwood, and is only slightly more talkative.

This is a relief, since dialogue never exactly sparkles in the X-Men films, and it’s not about to start here (though I was interested to learn that it is a bad omen to leave chopsticks upright, because they evoke incense sticks burning at a funeral). 

The sophistication lies in the fight and chase sequences, not the script. 

‘Go f*** yourself, pretty boy’, is about the closest Logan comes to a witty riposte.

But all credit to Jackman, who still manages to convey a man suffering from a kind of existential itch — and heaven knows it’s not easy to scratch any itch when you have claws.

Behind those claws, what this is, essentially, is an old-fashioned damsel-in-distress story, the damsel being the fragrant heiress, Mariko (Tao Okamoto).

But what good is a damsel in distress without a Prince Charming to fall in love with her? 

Happily, Logan obliges, with only the briefest of troubling flashbacks to his dead girlfriend Jean (Famke Janssen).

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