WASHINGTON – Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates ripped Washington on Thursday over sequestration budget caps, saying Congress' inability to reach a budget compromise was causing "grave damage" to the U.S. military, homeland security and other essential government operations.

"The most illustrative and appalling example of Congress' abdication of responsibility is sequestration," Gates said during an intelligence and national security forum hosted by SAP National Security Services here. "If there is a more stupid way to cut the federal budget, I am unable to imagine it."

The biggest threat to U.S. national security, he said, is "the political dysfunction that has led to defense cuts and military unreadiness."

Sequestration happened because congressional Republicans and Democrats, and the White House, failed to reach a deficit-reduction package in 2011 amid differences over issues like new tax revenues and domestic entitlement programs. Gates said using defense cuts to balance the national deficit is impossible without badly weakening the military.

"Those cuts translate directly into decreased readiness and technological superiority for the United States military," Gates said, adding later: "When we must cut the most important things we do at the same rate as the dumbest, bad things result."

He said his faint hope was that the "remaining adults" in Congress would compromise on a budget deal.

Gates' stinging, if familiar, criticism of Congress landed on both sides of the aisle, "deficit hawks and isolationists" on the right, and "old-school liberals" on the left.

Gates exempted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, whom he said recommended a responsible mix of military compensation reform, force structure reductions and base consolidation to balance the cuts. Then he teed off on Congress for rejecting these measures.

"The Congress has forced the Pentagon to the worst of all positions, first deeply cutting the budget and refusing to make the compromises to restore funding, and then preventing the Defense Department from implementing the reforms and reductions in overhead cost," Gates said.

While not a direct critique, he said President Obama was "sailing in uncharted and increasingly perilous waters," in his administration's handling of America's global position, following the ambiguous ending of two wars. And he pooh-poohed the idea of air and naval warfare without ground troops — likely a sideways reference to the administration's reluctance to use ground troops in Syria against the Islamic State.

Referencing China, Russia and Hezbollah, and the blurred lines between nation-states and terrorist groups, Gates said the U.S. military "must field a diverse portfolio of capabilities with maximum versatility across the widest possible spectrum of conflict," particularly because of its poor record of predicting where its wars will be fought.

To protect allies and interests in Asia, he said, the U.S. must employ missile defenses, protect space assets and its cyber networks, and invest in long-range systems, including unmanned aerial systems — not as provocation, but as a deterrent.

Increasingly, U.S. allies are incapable or unwilling to be full partners on the battlefield. During the Libyan air campaign, he said, the U.S.' European allies, including France and Britain, ran out of precision munitions, requiring the U.S. to make up the difference.

"For the United States, there is no avoiding making the investments necessary to maintain the military force in size, readiness and capabilities, to protect our vital national security interests around the globe," Gates said.

Answering a question about the state of America's education system, he said civics education is lacking and zinged Congress again — to applause.

"Frankly, I'd like to send most of the Senate back to take eighth grade American history again," he said, "because then they would understand the founders [knew], when putting together a government of separated powers, and checks and balances, that the only way anything gets done is through compromise."

Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.

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