Lawmakers Move To Prevent Automatic Defense Cuts
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 11:29AMBy Adrianna McGinley
Leaders on the House Armed Services Committee said they will look for ways to prevent automatic cuts to the nation’s defense budget from taking effect.
The Pentagon could lose roughly $600 billion over the next decade as a result of the congressional ‘super committee’s’ failure to pass a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion.
In a statement released late Monday evening, Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said the cuts would cause “catastrophic damage” to national security. “I will not be the armed services chairman who presides over crippling our military,” he vowed. “I will not let these sequestration cuts stand.”
McKeon announced he will soon introduce legislation to stop the cuts from taking place, citing that nearly $500 billion has already been cut from the military budget and saying, “those who have given us so much, have nothing more to give.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), also said that he was disappointed by the panel’s inability to reach a deal.
“Once again we’ve missed the chance to implement a comprehensive plan that balances revenue and spending reform and puts us on the path toward fixing our long-term fiscal and economic problems,” Smith said.
Smith warned that the cuts to defense would not be based on sound policy or strategic review and would, as a result, undermine national security.
“This is no way to defend our nation, and this is no way to run our government,” he said.
Their efforts, however, will be met by resistance from the administration.
“Already some in congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts,” President Obama said yesterday evening. “My message to them is simple; ‘no.’ I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts…there will be no easy off-ramps on this one.”
DOD Says If Iraqi Elections Go Smooth, Troops Come Home And Scrap Equipment Stays There
The Department of Defense Undersecretary for policy Michele Flournoy met with Congressmen for the second time in the past few months Wednesday, addressing some of the changes Iraq will face if U.S. troops are able to successfully follow President Obama's recently reiterated commitment to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by 2012.
Flournoy said that the January presidential election in Iraq looks promising, but conceded that if the plans don't go forward, future troop withdrawals aren't concrete.
"The drawdown plan that we have is conditions-based and it creates multiple decision points for reevaluating and if necessary, changing our plans, based on developments on the ground," Flournoy said during a hearing with the House Armed Services Committee.
She added that Iraq's Council of Representatives still has, in the DOD's opinion, another week or two to agree on an elections law before the January elections will be considered jeopardized. However, if the planned elections do run smoothly in Iraq, the DOD has plans to sell "scrap" military equipment to the Iraqi Security Forces.
Blue Dog Coalition member U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) expressed concerns about the plan, saying after Hurricane Katrina, his state had a "desperate need for generators" and warned that "something like Katrina is going to happen again, whether it's man-made, or the hand of God."
Taylor challenged the panel of witnesses, asking "to what extent are you taking those things that the military says they don't need anymore and putting them on line... and to what extent are you making those things available to cities, states, and counties?"
Flournoy and Alan Estevez, Acting Deputy Defense Undersecretary for Logistics and Material Readiness, said the goods sold to the ISF would be screened for U.S. need, to which Estevez responded: "the Department, in coordination with the General Services Administration, which is responsible for the transfer of excess property to state and local entities, has established a process that would allow state and local entities the opportunity to screen excess property in Iraq, prior to it being transferred to the Iraqi government."
Estevez added that the property is likely unusable by the states because of their foreign volt specifications but Taylor requested access to the list anyway.