The letter appears only on the Association of the US Navy website, it does not appear at the Joint Chiefs website.
Following Armed Forces Press Service item ((DOES)) appear as of 2042 EST, 19Jan13:
Sequestration Will Hollow Out Force Fast, Dempsey Says
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Jan. 17, 2013 – The across-the-board spending cuts that would result if a “sequestration” mechanism in budget law kicks in March 1 will hollow out U.S. military forces faster than most Americans imagine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today.
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said during a recent news briefing that if sequestration happens, the American military “will be less prepared in months and unprepared in a year.”
During an interview today on his return trip from NATO meetings in Brussels, the general said the cuts would quickly bring about a new type of hollow force.
ROBERT STEELE: Below is an extracted paragraph from the alleged letter, the one paragraph that makes sense:
To avert this crisis, we urge you to take immediate action to provide adequate and stable funding for readiness. We need a legislative solution that provides the time and flexibility to properly shape the best military force in the world. This means prioritizing warfighting readiness, appropriately sizing our military and civilian workforce and force structure, and reducing overhead costs. We must also be given the latitude to enact cost-saving reforms we need while eliminating the weapons and facilities we do not need.
My initial reaction is “wow!” HOWEVER, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not met Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) basic guidance as issued when he was Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC):
I am constantly being asked for a bottom-line defense number. I don’t know of any logical way to arrive at such a figure without analyzing the threat,; without determining what changes in our strategy should be made in light of the changes in the threat; and then determining what force structure and weapons programs we need to carry out this revised strategy. Senator Sam Nunn, then Chairman, SASC Source (p. 3)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have been dishonest and unprofessional up to this point, as have been their predecessors going all the way back to the end of World War II. They have administered to budget share driven by the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (MICC) while accepting extremely dishonest appraisals of the global threat, producing an incoherent strategy, and perpetuating an acquisition system that is so dysfunctional it could reasonably be found to be treasonous,the United States being at war at this time (whether legitimately declared or not).
If Senator Chuck Hagel is confirmed as Secretary of Defense, he will need a 100 day plan, the first portion of which will demand that he release into retirement all five of the Chiefs of Staff and their Chairman. The dishonest people that played along when ideological forces made possible financial excess without accountablity, are not to be relied upon — indeed they are not to be trusted, for their judgment is simply not sound.
Those who are selected to lead the transformation of the Department of Defense (DoD) should in my view, if offered a leadership position, be required to sign a legally binding document that will prevent them from every serving in any capacity in the MICC following their retirement.
Ethical evidence-based decision-making must be the driving force in defining the threat, devising the strategy, designing the force structure, and accelerating the re-direction of the acquisition system, much of which can be done away with. An Open Source Agency (OSA) jointly sponsored by the Secretaries of Defense and State, but with a Whole of Government thrust from day one, is the only legitimate foundation available for getting it right. Everyone else is corrupt. The secret world is incapable of delivering an accurate 360 degree threat statement and incapable of doing Whole System True Cost Economic appraisals. The think tank world is equally corrupt, all dependent like little squealing pigs on whatever donor pig they are sucking at for their hand-outs. The “gold nuggets” in the US Government are the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), both of which need to be freed from the Congressional corruption that forces upon them criminally insane “assumptions” that skew their findings. Once liberated, working in close collaboration with a completely new and expanded Office of the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget, and relying heavily on transparent public intelligence in the public interest across all threat and policy areas, I have no doubt at all that we will rapidly come to at least the first three conclusions below, but I offer seven prescriptions:
01. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was a huge mistake. Begin to shut it down immediately BUT redirect 75% of its budget to infrastructure and other domestic needs, mindful of the importance of having soft landings for those now employed by DHS.
02. The Department of State needs $100 billion a year redirected from the Department of Defense, and some form of Presidential oversight is needed that begins the process of ending foreign military assistance and closing down our military bases, while sharply ramping up how we wage peace and commerce.
03. The Department of Defense needs a 450-ship Navy, a long-haul Air Force, and an air-liftable Army is soon as possible, with foreign bases to begin closing immediately, the smallest first. We must vacate Afghanistan and Iraq within the year, and sharply reduce if not eliminate all drone assassinations, with the CIA closing down its extrajudicial operations and transferring to DoD all of its armed drones.
04. The brilliant plan devised by the Secretary of Labor under Ronald Reagan, to use the military induction centers as a means of rapidly embracing the unemployed and providing them with accelerated learning of needed skills in renewable energy and other localized resilience and infrastructure needs, should be revisited.
05. I am not an economist, but that is probably a good thing. The idea that a sovereign nation should be at all worried about defaulting on a debt to banks that have looted and broken every nation they have ever dealt with, is luducrous. The International Monetary Fund working paper of August 2012, the Chicago Plan Revisited, is right on target. Renounce the debt, rescind the public charters of the biggest banks, and immediately redirect national banking back to the community level, with a 50% reserve requirement and an end to obligatory membership in the Federal Reserve cabal, which should be phased out over time.
06. Income taxes have got to go. The Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax remains the best possible solution, and should be implemented immediately following Inauguration, with personal income taxes for 2013 eliminated from 1 January 2013, and all withholding for individual terminated, with refunds of those funds already withheld in the month of January. All individual and joint family income tax returns for 2012 should be accepted by the IRS without challenge, and all IRS resources redirected toward corporate tax evasion and import-export tax fraud.
07. The security of the USA is to be found in the restoration of education as the central focus of our culture, and the restoration of the legitimacy of the government. Public books and an end to all secret treaties, all secret trade agreements, all secret meetings, mandated. The Open Source Agency (OSA) should be established, and in a three year phased program, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) phased out while the new Director of the Central Intelligence restores the Collection Requirements and Evaluations Staff (CRES) and the inter-agency Advanced Program and Evaluation Group (APEG) where I used to work, assuming the title of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) again within 2 years. At some point, the White House may wish to consider integrating education, intelligence, and research under one new Deputy Director of OMB, with the mandate to create and present to Congress The Smart Nation Act as originally devised by myself and Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02), who should be brought back to Washington DC to play a role in the implementation of that legislation.
None of this is rocket science. All it requires is intelligence with integrity. The Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been lacking on both. We are long overdue in ending the practice of corrupt strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations, and we must instead begin Whole of Government strategy, Whole of Government policy, Whole of Government acquisition, Whole of Government operations.
“The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.” (Ackoff 2004)
I am not holding my breath, but today I feel like we are at the beginning of spring in America; the decision made in the next few weeks can begin the process of healing the Republic and restoring America the Beautiful, or they can finish the job of destroying the Constitution, the Republic, and the Commonwealth. I pray for the best possible outcome for the USA.
Semper Fidelis,
Robert David STEELE Vivas
See Also:
2013 Robert Steele: Reflections on the Inability of Washington to Think with Integrity
2013 Robert Steele: Reflections on Reform 2.2 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years
2011 Peace from Above: Future of Intelligence & Air Power
2009 Fixing the White House & National Intelligence
2009 Human Intelligence: All Humans, All Minds, All the Time
2009 Intelligence for the President–AND Everyone Else
2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power
2008 U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century
2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security
1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information
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