How to cut $600B not on the radar at Pentagon

[Geee]

Washington Times:

For Pentagon planners, automatic spending cuts slated to begin in January have become the $600 billion contingency they can’t plan for.

Military planners are under strict orders not to devise scenarios for meeting the demands of “sequestration,” as the automatic, across-the-board spending reductions are called. Such paperwork, if leaked, would tell Congress there might be a way to deal with such drastic cuts.

“The department is not currently planning for sequestration,” Air Force Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told The Washington Times. The White House budget office “has not directed agencies, including [the Defense Department], to initiate any plans for sequestration.”

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who has warned of a “hollow” force if the automatic cuts occur, has said there is no alternative long-range budget. The only spending plan being considered is his five-year budget that begins the Budget Control Act’s $487 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years. Sequestration would slash an additional $600 billion from the Pentagon budget.

Defense sources say the lack of planning goes even further: The armed services have talked of the dire consequences of sequestration, which would require deeper troop cuts and missions left undone. But they are not creating studies that would spell out specific reductions in weapons or programs for fear it sends a signal that such downsizing is doable.