AP

ABOARD THE USS PELELIU DEFENCE Secretary Leon Panetta told US Marines and sailors on Friday that Congress would be irresponsible if it doesn’t act to prevent drastic military budget cuts.

In a visit to this amphibious assault ship off the Southern California coast, he also said Afghanistan is making progress against the Taliban but Iran remains a potential threat to the US.

A budget agreement reached last August calls for defence cuts of $487 billion over a decade, a reflection of the drawdown of two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the pressure to reduce the nation’s deficit.

The failure of Congress to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in savings means automatic cuts of more than $1 trillion next January to defence and domestic programmes.

Congress “did a stupid thing” in risking the $50 billion in acrossthe- board reductions that would kick in next January, Panetta told hundreds of Marines and sailors.

“What they essentially did was to put a gun to their heads and to the heads of the country,” he said.

Answering questions from service members and journalists, Panetta also said last year was a turning point for the war in Afghanistan, where the US is winding down its combat role.

Afghan forces are doing their job in the country and more than 50 percent of the Afghan population is now living in areas secured by the Afghan government‚ showing the US strategy of handing over the security to them is working‚ but ultimately it will be up to Afghans, the secretary said.

“We can’t let anything, anything undermine that strategy,” he said. He said the level of violence in Afghanistan dropped last year for the first time in five years and the Taliban was weakened.

Afghanistan’s neighbour, Iran, continues to be a threat to US interests, however.

“If Israel decides to go after Iran and we have to defend ourselves, we could be engaged sooner than any of us want,” he said.