Posted on 02/07/2013 7:41:48 PM PST by Olog-hai
The United States is at risk of becoming a second-rate power if automatic budget cuts go into effect, plunging the U.S. armed forces into the most significant readiness crisis they’ve faced in more than a decade, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Thursday.
Panetta, who is retiring soon from his post, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that if the reductions are allowed to stand he would have to throw the country’s national defense strategy “out the window.” But Panetta also assured lawmakers the Pentagon would take the steps necessary to deal with possible threats in the Persian Gulf region after he approved the Navy's request to halve its aircraft carrier presence in the area.
Anticipating the Defense Department will have less money to spend, Panetta said the Pentagon has already imposed a freeze on hiring and cut back on maintenance at bases and facilities. Those moves are reversible, he said, as long as Congress acts quickly to head off the cuts, known as sequestration, and approves a 2013 military budget. …
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Communists would call that demoralization.
A second rate Defense Secretary was at the helm during Benghazi.
Maybe he can convince some of those super patriotic gay soldiers to work for free?
Right.
One might, with some degree of plausibility, claim that these cuts will degrade our ability to meet our military obligations or goals.
But for them to make us a “second-rate power” would require that one or more other countries suddenly outclass us.
Which isn’t going to happen.
You can go to hell!
85 billion dollars cut from 4 trillion dollars outlay is going to transform us into a second rate power?
What a crock of Obama.
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