Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vowed Thursday that he will not preside over deep Pentagon budget cuts that "hollow out" the military's combat power. If the special congressional deficit panel fails to agree on $1.2 trillion in federal spending cuts by Thanksgiving, the Pentagon and other security agencies would face around $600 billion in automatic cuts. Officials say the Defense Department would take about half that cut, on top of the bulk of another $350 billion funding reduction over a decade mandated in the August debt deal. If the $600 billion trigger is enacted by a supercommittee failure, it "guarantees that...
