Top Pentagon officials at a Senate budget hearing today were grilled about the plan to move an F-16 squadron from Eielson Air Force Base to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Senator Lisa Murkowski asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to try to get the Air Force to abandon the plan until it was better studied. Panetta defended the plan as necessary to meet Congressional mandates to reduce spending. Dempsey said he’d been hearing a lot from Alaska’s Senators about the plan and promised to look into it.
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