DoD OFFICIAL: ADMIN. TO TRY TO PROTECT NUCLEAR DETERRENT DURING SEQUESTRATION

The nation’s nuclear deterrent won’t be immune to cuts under government-wide spending cuts known as sequestration that are slated to go into effect in March, but Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel yesterday that the Administration would do its best to ease the impact of the cuts. “Nuclear deterrence is pretty important,” Carter said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “So it’s the last thing that you want to do serious damage to. So I would imagine that the Department of Energy, and the leadership there, and certainly we in the Department of Defense, will try to protect our nuclear capabilities to the maximum extent possible. But there may be some effects on some parts of it.” DOE and the Pentagon have not outlined any specific impacts of sequestration. Carter referred to the nuclear deterrent as a “national priority” yesterday during an exchange with Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). “That doesn’t mean that it will escape entirely the cuts of this magnitude. I just, I wouldn’t say that. But it is something that we would value pretty highly, because look at what the North Koreans are doing today and so forth. We really have to have a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent.”