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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Pentagon chief warns he won’t accept spending cuts ( Spunds Like The MIC Is Telling The Civilians to Keep Slaving Away) Pentagon chief warns he won’t accept spending cuts By Agence France-Presse Thursday, August 4th, 2011 -- 5:10 pm Print 5 Tags: barack obama, leon panetta, pentagon chief WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Thursday he would not accept large military cutbacks under a debt deal, charging the move would weaken the United States faced with rising powers. Panetta, holding his first formal news conference since taking charge of the Pentagon a month ago, launched a pre-emptive strike as a special committee prepares to slash spending under a last-ditch deal to avert a US debt default. Panetta, a veteran Democratic Party dealmaker who was once in charge of budgets, said that "God willing" the process would not trigger sweeping cuts under which the Pentagon could lose another $600 billion. Such cuts "I believe would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families and our military's ability to protect the nation," Panetta said. "It is an outcome that would be completely unacceptable to me as secretary of defense, to the president and, I believe, to our nation's leaders," he said. Defense spending, which has doubled since the September 11 attacks a decade ago, accounts for 20 percent of the overall federal budget. The United States spent some $700 billion last year on defense, far more than any other country. President Barack Obama is planning to withdraw the last US troops from Iraq at the end of this year and pull combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. US forces killed terror leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May and Panetta recently said a strategic defeat of Al-Qaeda is within reach. Panetta insisted the United States still needed a robust defense to "bring those wars to a stable conclusion" and to face threats from Iran and North Korea which both have controversial nuclear programs. In a likely allusion to China, Panetta said: "Then the responsibility is obviously to be able to project our power in the world in order to make sure rising powers understand that the United States still has a strong defense." The debt deal signed into law by Obama on Tuesday calls for at least $2.1 trillion in cuts in government spending over 10 years. The White House said military spending will fall by $350 billion in the first round of $917 billion in cuts, in line with Pentagon expectations. A special congressional committee has been created to come up with a second round of $1.5 trillion in further cuts from all areas. But if the bipartisan committee fails, then cuts of $1.2 trillion would automatically come into force -- divided evenly between military and non-military spending. Panetta stopped short of threatening to resign if the committee fails and triggers sweeping cuts, saying: "I didn't come into this job to quit; I came into this job to fight." Most observers believe the committee is unlikely to approve such major defense cuts on its own as Obama's opponents in the Republican Party are eager to preserve military spending.
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#10. To: tom007 (#0)
Hello everyone, Over the past few weeks I've noticed a number of visitors to my newly-redesigned site are coming from Freedom4um and I just wanted to say "thank you" for the support. I know that all of us together can make a difference; it's just a matter of having the political will AND turning "OFF" the television. Anyway, not to preach to the choir, as it were, but just know that I appreciate both the work you all do here, and on your own, and for supporting my site. Please, if you feel it's worth promoting to others, feel free to do so. (I'm on both Facebook and Twitter.) Carpe diem! ProToReAm (ProToReAm@ProjectToRestoreAmerica.US) http://ProjectToRestoreAmerica.US P.S. I hope to be putting up on my site very soon the three-part video "Why We Are in So Much Debt" as well as "How to Take Back Our Country," but I have to watch them first. :-)
Hi Pro! Nice to hear from you again!
Hi Christine. Thanks. It's hard to believe it's been, dare I say it out loud, over a year since I last posted here. YIKES! Just can't seem to say "no" to some projects. Have a good day, everyone.
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