Panetta: Defense Budget Likely to Include $250B in Cuts over 5 Years

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the department will release a five-year budget to Congress in February with about $250 billion in cuts.

Panetta's comments on Thursday, during a trip to South Korea, come as the Pentagon is embroiled in a review of how to cut roughly $450 billion over the next decade. The defense budget presented to Congress in February would span five years, "which is normally what we would present," Panetta said, according to a Reuters report. "But that would represent probably somewhere around $250- or $260 billion of the $450 billion that we're required to reduce."

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