Senior defense officials
urged U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to accept Pentagon plans to
cut troop levels and weapons systems to meet tight federal
budgets, saying excessive tinkering could increase risk to the
military and leave it poorly prepared for war.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a Senate panel that
budget caps requiring nearly a trillion dollars in Pentagon
spending cuts over a decade made it impossible to keep the
current military force "adequately ready and modernized."
"Readiness is our main concern, as it must be for anyone who
cares about our national security and the men and women who
defend it," Hagel told an Appropriations Committee panel. "So we
made a strategic decision to reduce the size of our force to
ensure our troops are trained, ready, capable."
Hagel's remarks came as the House of Representatives began
debating a 2015 defense appropriations bill that includes a
Pentagon base budget of $490.7 billion but shifts funds to save
weapons at the expense of maintenance and training. The White
House said this week it "strongly opposes" the House bill.
In its budget proposal for the 2015 fiscal year beginning in
October, the Pentagon proposed cutting the size of the Army to
between 440,000 and 450,000, down from the current 520,000.
It also said it would reduce the size of the Marine Corps
and eliminate popular weapons systems like the A-10 "Warthog"
close air support aircraft and the high-altitude U-2 spy plane.
But lawmakers have resisted many of the cuts, with panels in
the House and Senate proposing competing alternatives that would
save some of the weapons systems and make spending reductions
elsewhere, mainly affecting readiness.
"Our efforts to reshape and reform the military continue to
be rejected," Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate hearing.
"We have infrastructure that we don't need and with your
support, we ought to be able to divest. We have legacy weapon
systems that we can't afford to sustain and with your support,
we ought to be able to retire," Dempsey said.
"Failing to act on these issues ... will force us into an
unbalanced level of cuts to our readiness and modernization."
Dempsey added unless Congress changes the law, the Pentagon
will face even deeper cuts in the 2016 fiscal year, making the
reforms proposed this year even more critical.
"The risks will become, in my judgment, unmanageable," he
said. "This is a reckless and unnecessary path."
Beginning debate on the House's defense appropriations bill,
Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen said the measure included
funds for a 1.8 percent military pay raise, for 12 more Boeing
EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and M1 Abrams tank
upgrades, spending opposed by the White House.
The administration said in a statement this week it was
concerned that without "meaningful compensation reforms and
other cost-saving measures ... there is an increased risk to the
department's ability to implement the president's defense
strategy."
(Editing by Diane Craft)
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