Defense Minister Ehud Barak made an economic case, Monday, against cuts in his ministry's budget. Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Barak said the nation's economy blossomed and grew in recent years because of a quiet security situation, adding that harm to security would turn the economy backward.

Countering the finance ministry's contention that the defense budget has been on the rise, Barak presented figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics that would indicate that the budget has been going down.