Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/us/at-pentagon-leon-panetta-charts-change-of-course.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Panettas%20pentagon&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 9:05 AM
Subject: re: Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    It was never clear what secretary Panetta brought to the office of Secretary of Defense. As you note, he knew nothing of making wars. It turns out he knows nothing of history either. It was exactly because we did not "hollow out" our military at the end of WWII that president Truman could invade Korea without going to Congress; the military was already funded and armed.

   No cabinet-level secretary can be expected to know everything that goes into doing the job. That secretary Panetta would blunder ahead with a lie rather than ask a staffer for the facts however should worry us all.

Barry Haskell Levine