Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to share the military’s plans for potential “sequestration” cuts, slamming him for just recently starting such planning while blaming Congress for the fiscal mess.
“The threat of sequestration has loomed for well over a year and I find it deeply troubling that despite these repeated requests from Congress, you are just now instructing (Defense) Department components to conduct this long-overdue assessment and implementation plan,” Inhofe said in a Jan. 16 letter to Panetta, who is traveling in Europe.
Inhofe was reacting to Panetta’s Jan. 10 press conference, where he announced the Pentagon is conducting intense planning for the possibility of $500 billion in across-the-board sequestration cuts to defense starting in March. That effort also will address the possibility that Congress won’t pass an actual defense budget this year and instead allow the Pentagon to operate under a bare-bones continuing resolution through the end of fiscal year 2013. The Pentagon also is making near-term reductions, that can be reversed, to prepare for sequestration, Panetta said.
Inhofe said that both “Congress and the administration have a shared responsibility” to prevent sequestration–which most lawmakers and President Barack Obama oppose, but can’t agree on how to stop. The SASC leader told Panetta that “rather than simply blaming Congress as you did repeatedly in your press conference, it is my hope that you and the president will work with Congress to ensure that an agreement can be reached to spare our military from further devastating cuts.”
Panetta, speaking yesterday at U.S. Army Garrison Vicenza, Italy, said sequestration “is not an unsolvable problem.”
“People have just got to suck it up and…take on some of the risks and take on some of the challenges that are required by people in leadership,” he said, according to a transcript.
Inhofe requested from Panetta the detailed information the Pentagon is compiling on the potential impact of sequestration.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter released a memo Jan. 10 explaining what the military services should do to carry out near-term reductions to prepare for sequestration as well as what information they should provide in plans for sequestration’s actual implementation.
The services are creating those detailed plans, which are due to Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale by Feb. 1. Army, Navy, and Air Force leaders issued memos to their services this week about preparing for sequestration. Yet the plans due to Hale on Feb. 1 will be much-more detailed, and include data such as potential weapons program changes, hiring freezes, and operational reductions.
Inhofe asked Panetta to provide the SASC with those Feb. 1 reports along with an assessment from the Joint Staff on sequestration potentially creating a “hollow force.”
“Detailed information on the number of civilians impacted by hiring freezes; specifics on reductions in flying hours, steaming days, vehicles miles; plans for large programs; and essential reprogramming actions, would have led to a better understanding of the military risk posed by these cuts and should have been made privy to long before the original January 2, 2013 sequestration date,” Inhofe said to Panetta.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) similarly said Wednesday that he wished the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t wait “until the midnight hour” to issue a stark warning this week that pending budget cuts put military readiness at the “tipping point.” (Defense Daily, Jan. 17)
Obama and congressional Republicans have not been able to agree on a major plan to lower the nation’s deficit and stop sequestration from starting. But the two sides did agree, in the fiscal-cliff law signed Jan. 2, to delay sequestration’s start from January to March.