Nearly 60,000 to be dismissed form US Army over budget constraints
The United States Army is poised to lay off nearly 60,000 of its staffers over the next two years to save money, a report says.
The troop cut comprises 40,000 soldiers and an additional 17,000 Army civilian employees, according to documents obtained by USA Today, which said in a Tuesday report that the plan would “affect virtually all of.. domestic and foreign posts”.
US officials intend to make an announcement in regard to the move later this week.
As a result, the US military would have 450,000 soldiers by the end of the 2017 budget year on September 30, 2017.
According to the Pentagon's budget, released in February, the cut to 450,000 troops was envisioned to take effect on September 30, 2018.
An unidentified US defense official confirmed the report to AFP, although there has not yet been an official reaction to the document obtained.
The Army would have to dismiss another 30,000 soldiers, said the document, if the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, set to begin in October, take place.
As part of the cut, the number of troops at Fort Benning in Georgia and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska would be reduced to 1,050 from units of about 4,000 soldiers.
The report was disclosed after US President Barack Obama said on Monday that Washington was planning to "intensify" its fight against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists, wreaking havoc in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
US losing war on ISIL
Republican Senator John McCain said earlier in the day that the US attempts to battle ISIL by launching airstrikes and sending troops to Iraq were not enough.
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, made the remarks to Defense Secretary Ash Carter in a hearing on ISIL.
"Our means and our current level of effort are not aligned with our ends," McCain (seen below) said. "That suggests we are not winning, and when you are not winning in war, you are losing."
"This needs to happen sooner rather than later, or the disaster the next president will inherit — in the Middle East, but also far beyond it — will be overwhelming," he added
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