Senior Army officials are warning they may have to cut as many as 100,000 more soldiers over the next decade unless the automatic spending reductions forcing the military services to slash their budgets are stopped.
Army Secretary John McHugh tells a Senate committee Tuesday the losses would undermine the service's ability to be prepared for wartime missions. He says the Army is already planning to trim its ranks by 80,000 active duty troops due to previously planned budget reductions approved by Congress in 2011.
But if the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, continue into future years, thousands more soldiers, including reservists, will have to be let go due to a lack of money, McHugh says.
The Army's share of the automatic cuts over the next six month is $7.6 billion.
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