Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday pushed back on accusations that he is on a mission to gut the Pentagon's budget.
Hagel defended the Pentagon's plans to deal with sequestration at a House Armed Services hearing Thursday, saying that he had to tackle the reality of the across-the-board cuts.
"The president did not instruct me when he asked me to consider doing this job … to go over and cut the heart out of the Pentagon," Hagel told the panel. "That wasn't his instruction to me, nor any implication in any way."
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