WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates is recommending cuts for high-tech weapons programs he calls wasteful or ill-suited for the low-tech tasks of fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Gates was to lay out plans Monday to rearrange the huge Pentagon budget, some $534 billion for the coming year, to better address the wars the United States is fighting now and may fight in the future, Pentagon spokesmen said.

That could mean limiting or turning away from some expensive Cold War-era planes and ships — such as the $140 million-per-plane F-F-22 stealth fighter — that were designed to provide an edge against the Soviet Union and other former enemies.

President Barack Obama’s proposed Pentagon budget for the 2010 budget year in February left out specifics on weapons programs, which have recently made up about a third of overall military spending.

The promised emphasis on budget paring is a reversal from the Bush years, which included a doubling of the Pentagon’s spending since 2001.

Ahead of an afternoon news conference Monday, the Pentagon released no details on programs that Gates would recommend slashing, eliminating or expanding. Congress will make the final call, and many of threatened programs have strong advocates among lawmakers who will raise arguments about job losses in their home districts.

Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash. said Friday there were “a lot of systems that are going to be terminated. It’s going to be a bloody Monday.”

Gates himself has already pointed to a few programs, including the F-22 Raptor fighter plane, as examples of weapons that took on a life of their own despite delays and ballooning costs. He is expected to say Monday whether he wants to buy any more F-22s, which cost $140 million each and have yet to see combat.

Critics of the $65 billion program say it is sucking money from more immediate needs. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is under development, is seen by some as more versatile, realistic and cheaper, at about $80 million per plane.

Future funding for the radar-evading stealth fighter could affect nearly 100,000 jobs spread across virtually every state in the U.S.

Gates is on record as hesitant to build more than the 183 F-22s the U.S. is now committed to, but he faces opposition in Congress. A fleet of 750 was originally planned in the late 1980s, when the plane was being developed as a counterbalance to advanced fighters produced or planned by the Soviet Union.

Other programs that may be in for cuts include the Navy’s Littoral combat ship and the Army’s Future Combat Systems network.

The Government Accountability Office reported last week that 96 of the Pentagon’s biggest weapons contracts were over budget by a “staggering” figure of $296 billion.

A bill in Congress would require the Pentagon to do a better job of making sure proposed weapons are affordable and perform the way they should before the military spends big sums on them. The Defense Department has already adjusted its acquisitions policy to achieve some of those goals.