WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is cutting its aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf region from two carriers to one, the Defense Department said Wednesday, in a move that represents one of the most significant effects of budget cuts on the U.S. military presence overseas. The decision comes as Washington struggles to find a way to avoid sharp automatic spending cuts set to strike the Pentagon and domestic programs next month.
Budget strains lead U.S. to cut carrier
fleet in Persian Gulf
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is cutting its aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf region from two carriers to one, the Defense Department said Wednesday, in a move that represents one of the most significant effects of budget cuts on the U.S. military presence overseas. The decision comes as Washington struggles to find a way to avoid sharp automatic spending cuts set to strike the Pentagon and domestic programs next month.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has approved keeping just one carrier in the Persian Gulf region. The U.S. has maintained two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf for most of the last two years.
Panetta has been leading a campaign to replace the automatic cuts he warns would “hollow out” the military, and the Pentagon has been providing greater details on the cuts it would have to make if Congress fails to both replace them and agree on a 2013 defense budget bill. The carrier decision is one of the most significant announcements made thus far.
Plans for the USS Harry S Truman to deploy to the Gulf later this week have been canceled. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, brought home to Norfolk, Va., from the Gulf in December for the resurfacing of its flight deck and other maintenance, will return later this month and stay until about summer. The USS John C. Stennis will leave the Gulf and return home after the Eisenhower arrives.
Tunisia remakes gov’t in wake of assassination
TUNIS, Tunisia — Shaken by the assassination of a prominent leftist opposition leader that unleashed major protests, Tunisia’s prime minister announced Wednesday that he would form a new government of technocrats to guide the country to elections “as soon as possible.”
The decision by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali was a clear concession to the opposition, which has long demanded a reshuffle of the Islamist-dominated government. It also came hours after the first assassination of a political leader in post-revolutionary Tunisia.
The killing of 48-year-old Chokri Belaid, a secularist and fierce critic of Ennahda, the moderate ruling Islamist party, marked an escalation in the country’s political violence and sparked allegations of government negligence — even outright complicity. It also bolstered fears that Tunisia’s transition to democracy will be far more chaotic than originally hoped.
The ruling coalition, led by Jebali’s Ennahda party, had been in stalled negotiations with opposition parties to expand the coalition and redistribute ministerial portfolios in an effort to calm the country’s fractious politics. Elections had been expected for the summer, but an exact date depended on lawmakers finishing work on a new constitution.
Brennan’s CIA
bid chance to strike back at critics
WASHINGTON — A Senate hearing on John Brennan’s nomination to head the CIA could lay bare some parts of the secret war against al-Qaida: lethal drone strikes from covert bases against even American terror suspects, harsh interrogation methods and long detention of suspects without due process.
Some of the practices produced revulsion among some in Congress and the public, but the outcry has been muted because Brennan and others say that these harsh and secretive methods have saved American lives.
Those issues will be front and center in the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today for Brennan — a chance for him to answer criticism that he backed the detention and interrogation policy while he served at the CIA under President George W. Bush, charges that stymied his first attempt to head the intelligence agency in 2008.
By wire sources