The facts About Cheney's Cuts To Key Military Programs

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Desperate to Distract from President's Failed Record on Jobs and Security, Bush-Cheney Unleash Misleading Attack, Says Kerry Campaign
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=127-04262004


Cheney Proposed Cutting Weapons Programs That Were Important to Success in Iraq. In 1990, Cheney proposed cutting 90 C-17 Air Force cargo transport planes and 14 B-52 bombers. Cheney also sought the retirement of two Navy battleships, two nuclear cruisers, and eight nuclear-powered attack submarines. In 1991, Cheney scrapped the Navy's A-12 Stealth attack plane, a fighter that was proclaimed to be a key part of the future of navy aviation in advanced stealth technology. (Newday, 2/5/91; NY Times, 1/8/91; Boston Globe, 4/27/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90)

C-17s and B-52s Vital to Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to Defense Daily, "From January through mid-April C-17s in the Central Command's Middle East theater of operations conducted 2,600 missions, carrying more than 23,000 personnel, and more than 73 million pounds of cargo." An analysis by Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that the Air Force B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers dropped nearly two-thirds of the total bombs in the war. (Defense Daily, 5/21/03; Copley News Service, 7/3/03)

Cheney Cut Thousands of Active-Duty, Reserve, and Civilian Forces. In January 1990, Cheney banned the hiring of any new civilian personnel in the Defense Department through the end of September, which left more than 65,000 jobs vacant. Under the budget proposed in 1990, the Pentagon would have reduced active military personnel by 38,000; selected reserves would have fallen by 3,000. The budget called for the deactivation of two Army divisions. Long range, the Pentagon planned to reduce its work force by 300,000, including about 200,000 military personnel and 100,000 civilians. In 1991, he called for reduction of 200,000 active and reserve military personnel over two years. In 1992, Cheney called for cutting 500,000 active-duty people, 200,000 reservists, and 200,000 civilians over five years. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2/2/92; Chicago Tribune, 2/20/91; 1990 CQ Almanac, p. 672; Washington Post, 1/13/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90)

Reserves Being Used at "Unprecedented Rate" in Iraq. National guardsmen and reservists will soon make up 40 percent of the total U.S. force in Iraq. Reservists are being used at "unprecedented rate," according to Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the Army National Guard. Tasked with homeland security missions and combat rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the part- time soldiers mobilized in the first days after September 11 have yet to be deactivated. An internal Army National Guard survey of 5,000 soldiers in 15 states recently presented a disturbing forecast: The rate at which Army Guard members leave the force after extended deployments could nearly double to 22 percent. (U.S. News & World Report, 2/9/04; Chicago Tribune, 2/9/04)



Me Book

[TacticalPeek]

1. Atrios snagged some good cites from other bloggers.

Chenron

Sirota pre-empts the latest Cheney hypocrisy:


With Vice President Cheney set to attack his opponents Monday for supposedly wanting to cut defense spending
in the 1980s, I wanted to pass along this quote from Cheney from the same time period. According to the 12/16/84
Washington Post, as a House leader, Cheney went on record and specifically attacked President Reagan for not
cutting defense spending:

If Reagan "doesn't really cut defense, he becomes the No. 1 special pleader in town...The severity of the
deficit is great enough that the president has to reach out and take a whack at everything to be
credible...If you're going to rule out the other two , then you've
got to hit defense."
- Dick Cheney quoted in the Washington Post, 12/16/84

How can Cheney attack others for supposedly wanting to cut defense in the 1980s, when he was leading vocal
attacks against a President of his own party for not cutting defense?





...and Phredd provides:


Copyright 1990 Federal Information Systems Corporation
Federal News Service
FEBRUARY 1, 1990, THURSDAY
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
LENGTH: 38836 words


...


SEC. CHENEY:
To give a quick history, Mr. Chairman, since I became Secretary last spring, we've been through a fairly major
process of reducing the defense budget. In the package that we submitted last spring that I think was approved in
broad outlines by Congress, we cut almost $65 billion out of the five-year defense program. The package that
we're submitting today for '91 involves taking another $167 billion out of the defense program, for a total of about
231 billion . That's roughly the difference between the Reagan line in January of '89 and the Bush line
that's being submitted in January of '90.
The Defense Management Report contains reductions of 39 billion . That's part of the 167
above it. And the reductions in '91 amount to about $22 billion. Now, that is computed based upon taking the
program that Congress approved for '90, just last year, running it into '91 -- that's 28 divisions for the Army, the 561
ships for the Navy, the B-2, and all of the other problems that were authorized in the budget by the Congress for
Fiscal Year '90 -- and pricing them in '91; comes to about $317 billion. We're submitting a request for budget
authority of 295 -- roughly a $22 billion reduction in '91 numbers.


-Atrios 11:18 PM

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