Pentagon Spending Cuts: Dangerous Or Just Overdue?

WASHINGTON (AP) - What are taxpayers supposed to think? The Pentagon says threatened budget cuts will invite aggression, endanger national security and devastate its operations.

Though that view has plenty of adherents, there also are plenty of naysayers who call the Defense Department's predictions a scare tactic by bureaucrats desperate to protect their turf.

"This is palpable nonsense ... the idea that somehow or another this is going to be Armageddon," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary who is a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

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