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| Panetta pledges ‘no hollow force’ on his watch | |
| 2011-07-04 | |
Leon Panetta, sworn in Friday as the nation’s 23rd secretary of defense, pledged that there would be “no hollow force on my watch,” as the Pentagon seeks to rein in costs without undermining military readiness.
“While tough budget choices will need to be made, I do not believe in the false choice between fiscal discipline and a strong national defense,” he said, virtually echoing remarks by his predecessor, Robert. M. Gates. “We will all work together to achieve both.” On Thursday, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office projected that higher costs for weapons systems and health care will increase the Pentagon budget by $40 billion over the next five years. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that it would be a “grievous mistake” for Panetta to accede to President Obama’s proposal to carve $400 billion from the defense budget. “While there are substantial savings to be found in the defense budget, hundreds of billions cannot be cut without impairing our security,” Rumsfeld said. “Mr. Gates has said that he's already made the ‘easy’ cuts, yet there are serious questions whether some of them ... leave America ill-prepared for a conventional conflict and erode the strong deterrent necessary to prevent it.” | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-07-04 23:09 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-07-04 09:56 |