FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, file photo, the first F-35B fighter jet attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 arrives at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Yuma, Ariz. So far two veteran pilots of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing have been trained to fly the F-35B. They are becoming the first members of the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 that will debut at a ceremony Tuesday, Nov. 20, at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz.(AP Photo/The Yuma Sun, Craig Fry, File)
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FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, file photo, the first F-35B fighter jet attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 arrives at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Yuma, Ariz. So far two veteran pilots of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing have been trained to fly the F-35B. They are becoming the first members of the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 that will debut at a ceremony Tuesday, Nov. 20, at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz.(AP Photo/The Yuma Sun, Craig Fry, File)
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FILE - This Jan. 7, 2013 file photo shows former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama's choice for defense secretary, speaking in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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FILE - This Jan. 7, 2013 file photo shows former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, president Barack Obama's choice for defense secretary, speaking in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama, left, shakes hands with his choice for Defense Secretary, former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, after announcing Hagel's nomination in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
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FILE - In this June 22, 2012 file photo, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta speaks about suicide prevention at the annual Suicide Prevention Conference held by the Dept. of Defense and Veterans Administration, in Washington. Suicides in the U.S. military surged to a record 349 in 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2012, file photo, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaks during a news conference with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, not seen, at the Pentagon, in Washington. President Barack Obama and Congress have just a few weeks to figure out how to avert the automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs totaling $110 billion next year. Those reductions are part of the so-called fiscal cliff of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and the across-the-board cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned would be devastating to the military. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta boards his airplane prior to departing San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. Panetta is traveling to Hawaii, Australia, Thailand and Cambodia. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
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In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 photo, J.D. Williams poses for a picture in Huntsville, Ala. Williams is a veteran who served near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pits were used to burn garbage at military bases and some vets are reporting health problems they attribute to the smoke. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
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FILE - This Sept. 22, 1942 black-and-white file photo shows Aviatrix Nancy Harkness Love, director of the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (WAFS), and Col. Robert H. Baker, commanding officer, inspect the first contingent of women pilots in the WAFS at the New Castle Army Air Base, Del. Women served and died on the nation’s battlefields from the first. They were nurses and cooks, spies and couriers in the Revolutionary War. Some disguised themselves as men to fight for the Union or the Confederacy. Yet the U.S. military’s official acceptance of women in combat took more than two centuries. New roles for females were doled out fitfully _ whenever commanders got in a bind and realized they needed women’s help. A look at milestones on the way to lifting the ban on women in ground combat. (AP Photo, File)
Panetta warns of crisis in military readiness
WASHINGTON (
AP) — Looming across-the-board budget cuts will present the U.S. military with the most significant readiness crisis in more than a decade unless quick action is taken to avoid the spending reductions, Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta warned during testimony Thursday before the Senate
Armed Services Committee.
If the billions of dollars in cuts are allowed to stand, Panetta said, he would have to throw the country's national defense strategy "out the window," and the United States would no longer be a first-rate power. "This will badly damage our national defense and compromise our ability to respond to crises in a dangerous world," Panetta said.
Anticipating the Defense Department will have less money to spend, Panetta said the Pentagon has already put in place 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.
Panetta, who is retiring soon from his post, has been leading a vocal campaign to stop sequestration because it would leave the military "hollow," meaning the armed forces would look good on paper but would lack the training and equipment they need to handle their missions.
As part of that campaign, the Defense Department has been providing greater details on the impact of the cuts. The department on Wednesday said it is cutting its aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf region from two carriers to one, a move that represents one of the most significant effects of sequestration. The U.S. has maintained two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf for much of the last two years.
The potential for sequestration is a result of Congress' failure to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. The Pentagon faces a $42.7 billion budget cut in the seven months starting in March and ending in September.
Congress has not approved a defense budget for the 2013 fiscal year. Lawmakers have instead been passing bills to keep spending levels at the same rate as last year. That means the Pentagon is operating on less money than it planned for, and that compounds the problem, Panetta said.
"We have got to end the cloud of budget uncertainty that hangs over the Department of Defense and the entire U.S. government," Panetta said.
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