Bush Takes Aim at Harsh Military Cuts : Defense: Completing a seven-state campaign swing, he targets Democratic proposals for trimming armed services budgets. He makes clear a veto threat.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. —  President Bush, complaining about members of Congress “who wouldn’t know a Tomcat from a Tomahawk,” shifted his gun sights Saturday from Patrick J. Buchanan’s political challenge to Democrats trying to shave millions of dollars from his defense budget, and warned them: “Don’t play political games with the national security of the United States of America.”

“I say this to those who want to put down the scalpel and swing the meat ax: This deep, no deeper. I will hold the line against reckless cuts,” Bush said as he completed a four-day visit to seven states, six of which were in the final days of presidential primary contests.

The defense cuts Bush attacked are likely to be approved as early as this week in the House budget resolution. But Senate action is also required, and spending for specific programs is set in other measures.

The House Democrats’ plan would double the cuts proposed by the President, who accused the Democrats of “starting a bidding war: See who can gut our defenses the fastest.”

“They want to cut the muscle. And they want to take the minimum we’ve said we need to meet our security needs and they want to cut $100 billion more,” Bush said in a speech at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at the Pensacola, Fla., Naval Air Station.

Making clear his veto threat, he said: “If they send me a bill that doesn’t keep us strong, I’ll shoot it down.”

Bush outlined four central elements of national security in the post-Cold War era--nuclear deterrence, deployment of forces near potential theaters of conflict, rapid response to threats and a readiness to rebuild depleted forces.

But he warned: “The next challenge may not come from abroad at all. The next threat may be a sneak attack by some congressional subcommittee, and some of these armchair strategists on Capitol Hill, folks who wouldn’t know a Tomcat from a Tomahawk, are getting ready right now to open the battle of the pork barrel.”

A Tomahawk is a sea-launched cruise missile, and a Tomcat is an F-14 jet fighter, one of the top guns of the Navy’s aerial arsenal.

“Some members (of Congress) who ought to look to our national defense needs can’t see past their own congressional district,” the President said. “And if we keep open bases that are obsolete and buy weapons that we don’t need or respond to threats that no longer exist, we will not be ready for the very real dangers that may come our way.”

The Administration has given Congress a $281-billion defense budget request for 1993, as part of a five-year military-spending package that cut $50.4 billion from a plan drafted last year. House Democrats have sharply criticized it, promising to slice another $114 billion over the next five years.

Bush would reduce the Army to 12 active-duty divisions. There would be 13 Navy aircraft carriers and 15 Air Force air wings. But House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) figures the proposal he champions would reduce the Army to 10 divisions, and maintain 12 aircraft carriers and 10 Air Force air wings.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this story.