US military parade ordered by Prez Trump postponed to 2019

Washington, August 17 

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A multimillion-dollar military parade planned by US President Donald Trump through the streets of Washington DC in November has been postponed until 2019, the Department of Defence has announced.

President Trump, also the commander-in-chief of the US military, got the idea of holding the grand parade while viewing France’s Bastille Day Parade in July 2017 along with French President Emmanuel Macron. 

The parade was originally conceived to mark the centenary of the end of World War I, on November 11. The news about the parade’s postponement came amid reports that the event could cost about $90 million, more than three times the original estimate.

A memo when the plan was first mooted said no tanks would be used so as not to damage the roads of Washington. The Pentagon said the military would march from the White House to the Capitol, and the parade would feature a “heavy air component at the end”.

The focus was to be on the work of US military veterans through the ages, starting with the American Revolutionary War. — PTI

Costly Affair 

• The parade’s budget director had offered an estimate of between $10 million and $30 million when the White House announced its request in February. But a US official gave a new estimate of $92 million
• The parade was originally conceived to mark the centenary of the end of World War I, on November 11. The US had a military parade in 1991 following the end of its successful campaign to force Saddam Hussein’s troops out of Kuwait