At Secretary Rumsfeld's news conference on the budget Monday, one reporter (unidentified in the transcript) caught on to this and the following exchange ensued:
QUESTION: "The budget shows that Army spending is going down by $300 million …"
RUMSFELD: "Which, as you know, is not the case."
QUESTION: "Well, that's what I see."
RUMSFELD: "Yeah. I should have mentioned that. … The only way you can look at this budget is to look at the supplementals with it …"
QUESTION: "Well, are you hiding—are you—are they, in fact, hiding non-combat costs in the supplemental—"
RUMSFELD: "No, of course not. … No, that would be wrong [laughter] and we wouldn't do that. … This is no—it's all right out in the open."