Panetta faces no major hurdles to confirmation as Pentagon chief

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

The presumptive new leader of the Pentagon, Leon E. Panetta, faced a polite grilling Thursday from senators on cutting the defense budget and winding down the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. But no serious obstacles emerged to his confirmation as defense secretary, as he received support from both parties.

Panetta, 72, has served as director of the CIA since 2009 and came into his Senate confirmation hearing with plenty of political goodwill from his handling of the daring cross-border raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last month.

But the former congressman from California will confront no shortage of strategic and management challenges as he prepares to take over the Pentagon on July 1. In the immediate term, he will have to carry out President Obama’s pledge to begin withdrawing at least some troops from Afghanistan next month, meet a year-end deadline to pull out the remainder of U.S. troops in Iraq, and navigate an uncertain path ahead in Libya, where Moammar Gaddafi is clinging to power despite NATO’s efforts to force him out.

Panetta also will have to implement Obama’s order to reduce overall national security spending by $400 billion over the next 12 years, sharply reversing a decade of immense growth in the Pentagon’s budget. Those cuts come on top of $78 billion in long-term spending trims that current Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced earlier this year, prompting warnings from defense hawks that Obama is squeezing the military too hard.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/panetta-faces-no-major-hurdles-to-confirmation-as-pentagon-chief/2011/06/09/AGE6ZHNH_story.html

[GillesDeleuze]

1. this guy is part of the old guard..

when are we actually going to get some fresh minds at the pentagon to END these wars?

[Kolesar]

2. Wow $33 billion in cuts/year after the Pentagon budget was raised by $333 billion/year

IIRC.

I hope Congress cuts much more than that.