From munitions to missiles, top officials of all four U.S. services on Wednesday told a congressional panel that continued forced spending cuts will bring “historic lows” that would seriously threaten the military’s readiness and capability.
Testifying before the Tactical and Land Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, the officials repeatedly warned about the effects of sequestration in fiscal 2014, stressing that the instability and uncertainty of the cuts make it impossible to plan for new weapons, ships, planes and other hardware, and maintenance is being deferred on the military’s current fleet, they said.
They did not mince words. Heidi Shyu, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology, called the continued cuts “devastating.”
“The prospect of sequestration-level reductions through FY 2021 threatens to lower Army investment in soldier equipment to historic lows as a result of steep and sudden reductions required under the current law caps,”…..
….The purchase of 12 Apache helicopters would also be canceled – eight were already canceled in the past fiscal year – and 11 Chinook helicopters would not be bought, which would expose the Army to violation of a procurement contract at a cost of $77 million in liability expenses and an eventual cost increase of $1.4 billion.
In the 2013 fiscal year, Shyu said sequestration already caused 22,000 Army workers to be furloughed and about 2,600 civilian and contract personnel to be released. Maintenance was deferred on 172 planes, more than 900 vehicles, nearly 2,000 weapons and more than 10,000 pieces of communications equipment. Shyu estimated the deferred costs totaled $73 million……
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