Gates Calls Automatic Pentagon Cuts ‘Mindless, Stupid’

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he probably would have quit if he held the job when the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration took effect last year.

“I think I would have resigned” because “it is such a mindless, stupid way to approach the nation’s defense budget,” Gates said in an interview this week at the beginning of a tour to promote his memoir, “Duty.”