Former President Barack Obama's shrinking of the military is "killing more Americans in uniform in training than we are than engagement with the enemy," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday.
"It's because of a thing called sequestration and our failure over the last eight years to make sure our military is prepared, equipped, trained," Sen. McCain told CBS's "Face The Nation." "Whenever you cut defense capabilities, the first thing that goes is the training and the readiness, because that's easy enough to cancel. If it's a new weapons system, something of significant impact, then that's a lot harder. And so the first thing that goes is [training and readiness].
"And so our readiness continues to suffer, and the training that they need very badly is not there."
More military spending would to help curb the deaths such as the naval accidents this summer, McCain told host John Dickerson.
"It can be fixed in the defense authorization as far as authorizing; the appropriations, the money side, is still on the decline, and we have to fix that," McCain said. "And I would quote no less an expert than chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who said if 'we don't turn this around, within five years our adversaries will have caught up with us in capabilities.'"
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