The Pentagon will provide Congress by July 1 with a detailed outline of how its budget would look in Fiscal 2014 if budget sequestration is still in effect, said Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter. This will comply with the Senate Armed Services Committee’s request for that information, reported Federal News Radio on June 6, the day after Carter’s speech at a special operations conference in Washington, D.C. The Pentagon’s Fiscal 2014 budget request did not factor the effects of sequestration—some $500 billion in defense cuts from Fiscal 2012 through Fiscal 2021—and instead programmed for $150 billion in defense cuts over 10 years as part of the Obama Administration’s deficit-reduction plan. Carter said the outline would factor the insights gained from the Pentagon’s recent Strategic Choices Management Review. “We looked at every aspect of the establishment: roles and missions among the services, business and acquisition practices, contingency planning, force structure, compensation, modernization — the whole deal,” he said. “We’re ready for whatever happens to our budget,” he said, calling for congressional support in enabling the best choices.
A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 suffered an engine failure flying over Africa in May 2023, forcing the drone’s pilot to down it in the ocean where it was not recovered, according to a new Air Force report. The cost of the mishap was more than $21 million.