U.S. won't cut carrier fleet to fix budget, Panetta says

[Karmadillo]

Why cut a carrier when you can cut the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/22/us-usa-defense-idUSTRE80L00R20120122

(Reuters) - The United States will not cut America's fleet of 11 aircraft carriers to help trim the budget deficit, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday, citing tensions with Iran as an example of why the massive ships are so critical to national security.

Panetta was addressing about 1,700 sailors headed to the Gulf this spring aboard the USS Enterprise, which after a half-century of service is about to embark on its final tour before being taken offline in November.

The Enterprise's last deployment comes at a moment of heightened tensions with Iran, which has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil shipping lane. That's something the United States says it will not allow.

"You're part of what keeps our force agile and flexible and quickly deployable and capable of taking on any enemy, anywhere in the world," Panetta said, speaking about 100 nautical miles off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia.

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[Lasher]

1. It is beyond any doubt that he is speaking on behalf of Obama.

We have 11 carriers in service and one in reserve. The rest of the world combined has a total of 9. Only two other countries have more than one: Spain and Italy each have two.

All our aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. France is the only other nation to have a nuclear powered carrier. They have only one.

I'm having trouble understanding why we can't eliminate even one of our active carriers and their associated task forces.