A day after the Pentagon outlined the stark choices it confronts due to looming budget cuts in coming years, top defense officials pressed Congress to give them the time and flexibility to make the reductions without undermining security.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned lawmakers on Thursday that the Pentagon could not hit its budget targets under the law in the next few years without "drastic measures that are not strategically or managerially sound," like grounding aircraft or putting employees on unpaid leave as was done this year/.../
"For the first time DoD (Department of Defense) seems to be kind of ponying up to the fact that sequestration is now the base plan," said Jim Thomas, a vice president at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank. "You'd better be planning for sequestration."
"The (review) was a start and it's taking some steps I think in the right direction, but it still has a long way to go," he told a briefing for reporters.