Military service chiefs warn budget cuts will undermine readiness

After staying largely on the sidelines of the debate over deficit reduction, the U.S. military’s service leaders have begun painting a stark picture of the toll a congressionally mandated budget cut could take on the readiness of the world’s largest armed forces.

The $46 billion dent to the Pentagon’s fiscal 2013 budget, long considered by the brass as nothing more than a political pawn, has taken on an air of inevitability, forcing commanders across the military to plan for painful reductions and argue that American lives and livelihoods are hanging in the balance.

Gallery

The sequester and the debt ceiling, explained: President Obama and lawmakers are facing several important fiscal deadlines. One is to avoid the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts included in sequestration and another is raising the country’s debt ceiling. Here is a look at some of the issues involved in these two fiscal challenges.

More on this story:

Pentagon warns of sequester-related furloughs

Zachary A. Goldfarb and Ernesto Londoño

As many as 800,000 civilian employees could be forced to take unpaid leave if budget cuts kick in.

GOP losing sequester blame game

Aaron Blake

THE FIX | Poll shows 49 percent say they would blame Republicans for a failure to reach a deal; 31 percent would blame President Obama.

The Sequester: Everything you could possibly need to know, in one FAQ

Dylan Matthews

WONKBLOG | You have questions about the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in March, we've got answers.

Injecting ominous warnings about national security into policy debates has in the past snapped elected leaders into action, but there is no sign that Republicans and the White House are close to compromising on a more measured approach to reducing the deficit. Some lawmakers and analysts have dismissed the caution as posturing by a force reluctant to shrink too much in a postwar era.

In response, the military’s service chiefs are amplifying the months-long warnings of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and others and providing what they have described as the specific and serious consequences of the across-the-board cuts.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, recently warned that the cuts may curtail training for 80 percent of ground forces, including some in the deployment pipeline, forcing him to extend the deployments of troops already in Afghanistan.

Facing a $8.6 billion shortfall, the Navy has delayed the deployment of the USS Harry Truman, leaving just one aircraft carrier instead of two in the Persian Gulf, where tensions continue with Iran. The budget crunch also will mean delays for repairs of a carrier and the construction of another.

The Air Force has warned that slashing $12.4 billion from its budget for the remainder of the fiscal year would require cutting 200,000 flying hours. That means that by May, two-thirds of the force’s pilots would “drop below acceptable level of readiness,” Air Force chief Mark Welsh told lawmakers recently.

After holding out hope for a compromise, Pentagon civilians were startled Wednesday when Panetta notified 800,000 employees that they might face a 20 percent pay cut if furloughs are implemented starting in April. Although the payroll for uniformed personnel is spared, the threat of extended deployments has confounded troops in Afghanistan.

“It’s like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said one service member there, Maj. Dustin Navarro, 31. “I’d rather have higher taxes and fewer base resources at home than have this kind of uncertainty while deployed.”

With cuts set to begin March 1, Odierno said in a speech last Friday that the Army is scrambling to find up to $24 billion in reductions for the last seven months of the fiscal year. The shortfall will affect training, he said, presenting a thankless choice between sending untrained troops to Afghanistan and keeping certain units there months beyond their exit dates. American lives are at stake, he warned.