Ret. Gen. Michael Hayden described the U.S. military as the 1 percent that has defended the rest of the country.
"Let me give you another sense of 1 percent. One percent of this country has been defending the other 99 percent of this country for the last 13 years," Hayden, a retired Air Force general, told "Fox & Friends" Thursday.
Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, admitted the Defense Department personnel budget was "exploding." He suggested Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel put a cap on possible military cuts, so that the Defense Department doesn't become "the social services and health care organization that occasionally fights wars."
Hagel has proposed cuts that would shrink the size of the Army, place a one-year freeze on raises for top military officers, place limits on pay raises for troops, and limit troops' housing allowances.
The proposed cuts would hit the "1 percent who have sacrificed," while ignoring "the bigger entitlement problem of the other 99 percent," Hayden said.
"That is a conscious decision to accept increased risk," Hayden said.
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