DOD CUTS 100 FIGHTER JETS TO PAY FOR IRAQ

"The U.S. Navy has launched at least two-thirds of the Tomahawk cruise missiles it has in the Middle East during the first two weeks of the war in Iraq, requiring it to rush some of its remaining stock of the missiles to the region. The rapid depletion of its arsenal comes at an awkward time because the Tomahawk’s maker, Raytheon Co., stopped production in 1999 after the Navy ordered a new version that won’t be ready until mid-2004.

"Navy officials say they have fired more than 700 of the 1,100 Tomahawks they had in the Middle East from destroyers, submarines and other ships in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea during the current conflict. …

"The Navy had a total of 2,000 Tomahawks in its global stocks when the war started. But in the early days of the Iraqi conflict, the missiles were used extensively against targets in and around Baghdad where heavy antiaircraft fire limited fighter jets’ ability to safely conduct bombing raids. The service since has cut back on their use, firing between 15 and 30 a day, a Navy spokesman said. The 18-foot missiles can fly 1,000 miles and use a variety of targeting systems to find their mark. …

Reuters News Agency reports that "Ending years of bitter contention, the Navy said yesterday it will halt battle training on Vieques Island off Puerto Rico on May 1 and transfer the exercises to bases in the southeastern United States and areas at sea.

"The announcement followed a decision by President Bush in mid-2001 to end a half-century of Navy and Marine Corps live-fire training on the tiny island off Puerto Rico’s east coast.

"Navy officials said training for aircraft carrier battle groups and Marine forces headed abroad would in the future be shared chiefly by Eglin and Pinecastle Air Force bases in Florida and at two Marine bases in North Carolina – Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point Air Station. …

" ‘We cannot continue to defer procurement as we did over the last decade,’ General Myers plans to tell the Senate, according to a copy of his prepared testimony. ‘We must accelerate the replacement of aging systems if we are to sustain our capability to meet near-term challenges and all of our 21^st-century commitments.’…

"Two Russian strategic nuclear bombers flew within 37 miles of Alaska recently in a rare probe of U.S. air defenses, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

"The Tu-95 Bear H bombers were part of a group of four bombers that deployed recently to the military air base near Anadyr, a port in the northern Far East of Russia. The bombers can carry up to 16 Kh-55 strategic cruise missiles, which are equipped with 200-kiloton nuclear warheads.

"The bombers flew north along the coast of Alaska. The Air Force scrambled two F-15 jet fighters to intercept the propeller-driven bombers. The F-15s shadowed the bombers for a short distance and then broke off.

"Over the past generation, the U.S. military has become a voracious consumer of funds for current operations, and all that consumption is crowding out investment. Like New York City in the 1970s, the military has so many near-term budgetary obligations to meet that it never gets around to replacing its crumbling equipment and infrastructure. …

"One-quarter of the requested $48 billion increase goes to spending on military personnel, which rises from $82 billion to $94 billion even though the size of the force is unchanged. Some of the increase reflects costs associated with the war on terrorism, but further increases result from higher levels of compensation, enhanced benefits and targeted incentives necessary to recruit and retain capable people.

"Since 1990, the average age of Air Force planes has increased from 13 to 22 years. Not surprisingly, it costs more to keep this aging fleet in the air. In the case of tankers, which average almost 40 years of age, a third are in repair shops all the time. …

According to Dave Moniz (USA Today, 4/24/02, p. 13A), the B-52 "is scheduled to fly until 2040. That would make it the longest-serving military jet in history. …

" ‘The B-52 is the Air Force’s answer to the Navy aircraft carrier in terms of fear and morale,’ says Chris Bolkcom, an aviation analyst with the Congressional Research Service. ‘Nobody wants 70,000 rounds of ordnance dropped on them, and just the threat of B-52s flying overhead is enough to make our adversaries run.’ …

"Known to Air Force crews as the "BUFF" (Big Ugly Fat Fellow), it was for nearly four decades an essential part of the United States’ deterrent against the Soviet Union. The brainchild of legendary Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, the B-52 was dreamed up by Boeing engineers in a Dayton, Ohio, hotel room in October 1948. …

"Instead of flying dozens of fighter jets capable of dropping only one or two bombs each, the Pentagon dispatched a handful of B-52s or B-1 bombers in Afghanistan to visit destruction equal to an entire squadron of smaller aircraft. …

"On at least two occasions, Air Force B-52s cruising high over Afghanistan prevented the defeat of Northern Alliance and U.S. Special Forces troops under siege. …

"The B-52s carry a mother lode of weaponry, including 16 satellite-guided smart bombs under their wings and 27 unguided ‘dumb’ bombs in their bellies.

"Air Force B-52s loitered for three to four hours at a time over Afghanistan, where soldiers directed them to enemy soldiers during the heat of battle using laser range finders and hand-held navigation aids linked to satellites.

"The tactics, never before used in war, allowed the United States to destroy the same number of targets as during the Gulf War by flying a tenth the missions. …

"The B-52 is the monster truck of airplanes. It is the only military jet still flying that has eight engines. The aircraft is so sturdy, 8^th Air Force commander Keck says, that even if it lost half its engines to enemy fire it could still land safely. …

"Over time and for no compelling reason, the United States has unilaterally forsworn, and is yet forswearing, one military capability after another. Whereas in Caligulizing defense the Clinton administration honored its absurd anti-military ideology, President Bush can claim no such rationale. Why, for example, does he plan to reduce the B-1 fleet by a third at the onset of what he calls the defining struggle of the 21^st century, when the 31 planes that will be discarded are capable collectively of delivering to virtually any point in the world, at a single stroke, 4 million pounds of ordnance?

"During the Second World War, the United States diverted more than a third – and by some estimates half – of its GNP to defense, despite the fact that real per capita GNP was much smaller than it is now, and thus the margin for such expenditure smaller as well. Even so, the country prospered. …

According to Mike Allen (Washington Post, 9/2/01, p. 1), "The United States plans to offer China an advance look at plans for testing President Bush’s proposed missile defense shield, part of an emerging effort to soften Beijing’s opposition to the plan, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

"National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the United States will begin intensive talks over the next several weeks to try to convince China it would not be threatened by the shield and should not accelerate a buildup of nuclear missiles pointed at the United States. …

"Another administration official said that as a sweetener for China, the United States will signal that it recognizes both sides might want to resume nuclear weapons testing in the future. Such tests, now precluded by a voluntary worldwide moratorium, could allow China to field a new generation of mobile, multiple-warhead missiles. …

"China has about two dozen missiles pointed at the United States, and scholars expect that number to increase tenfold over the next decade. Rice said that because of the ongoing buildup, opponents of a missile defense shield should not argue that it ‘is somehow going to drive an arms race.’ …

"Conservatives warned the administration against giving too much ground for the sake of the missile shield. Kenneth Adelman, who was President Ronald Reagan’s arms control director, said he disagreed with the notion that ‘if you act very sweetly toward the Chinese, the Chinese will reciprocate.’

Joseph Curl and Rowan Scarborough report (The Washington Times, 2/13/01, p. A1) that "Mr. Bush has been criticized by pro-defense lawmakers for refusing to immediately submit to Congress the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s request for $7 billion in emergency funds in the 2001 budget.

"Despite the criticism, the president, who campaigned on a theme of ‘help is on the way’ to the armed forces, has not backed off his resistance to funding emergency items such as spare parts, fuel and ammunition. He says any substantial boost to future defense budgets must await his ordered ‘top to bottom’ review of force structure to meet shifting post-Cold War threats. …"

BOOSTS IN PAY, HOUSING, AND HEALTH CARE A GOOD FIRST STEP

" ‘I commend President Bush for proposing to dedicate $5.7 billion for increases in pay and improvements in housing and health care,’ the Virginia Republican [Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee] said. ‘This is an excellent first step in the effort to keep faith with the men and women in uniform and their families. I support strongly the president’s initiative to pursue strategic assessments. I continue to believe, however, that there is a necessity to have a supplemental appropriations bill before July 4 to address immediate personnel and readiness needs.’ …

Ike Skelton writes (USA Today, 2/14/01, p. 14A) that "For the most part, Congress looks at national defense with a bipartisan eye. That’s why we were encouraged to see both candidates for president urging increases in funding for national defense. And that’s why Vice President Cheney’s declaration that ‘help is on the way’ sounded welcome to many congressional ears.

"And that’s also why it doesn’t sit too well with us to hear that President Bush has now decided that no increase is needed, either for next year’s budget or to pay the bills already clogging the Pentagon’s in-box.

"It probably doesn’t sit too well with a lot of the retired military officers who broke tradition to publicly endorse the president, either. Instead of putting money on the table, he has put egg on their faces. …

"An immediate supplemental appropriation to cover last year’s activity and a responsible budget to meet the nation’s needs in the year ahead are both part of the price of American leadership.

"Delay paying that bill, and training stops. Ammunition runs out. And good people decide to say goodbye to the service. …

"[I]t’s not realistic for him to say, ‘Stop the world -- America wants to get off.’ the world won’t wait for our strategic review. Neither will the creditors, whom the men and women in uniform owe."

Steven Lee Myers reports (New York Times, 2/9/01, p. 1) that "President Bush will order a comprehensive review of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, a first step toward the unilateral cuts in warheads and missiles that he promised during last year’s campaign, senior military and administration officials said today. ..."

TWO-THIRDS REDUCTION IS PLANNED

"The nation’s arsenal as of last year included 7,519 nuclear warheads on missiles, submarines or bombers, compared with Russia’s 6,464. But the review is expected to lead to cuts below the 2,000 to 2,500 warheads proposed by the United States and Russia in 1997 as a goal for a third round of strategic arms reduction talks, or Start III."

GOAL IS TO ASSUAGE CONCERNS OF MOSCOW AND BEIJING

"Significant reductions in the American arsenal could smooth anxieties among opponents about the administration’s pursuit of a missile shield. At the same time, they could expose new differences between Mr. Bush and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were dismayed by Mr. Bush’s decision not to propose an immediate infusion into their budget.

"Last year, when President Clinton was considering ways to cut nuclear warheads below the Start III proposals, the chiefs publicly warned against it. The Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. Michael E. Ryan, and the Chief of Naval Operations at the time, Adm. Jay L. Johnson, both said they would be ‘uncomfortable’ with an arsenal that low."

Jonathan Wright reports for Reuters (dailynews.yahoo.com, 2/4/01) that "NATO troops will probably stay in the Balkans for years and U.S. troops will not leave Bosnia or Kosovo ‘in the immediate future,’ Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

" ‘There is no exit date for the whole force either in Bosnia [or] Kosovo. Those will be long-term commitments,’ he told ABC’s ‘This Week’ program. ...

"His comments were another indication that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has had second thoughts about any abrupt withdrawal from Bosnia and Kosovo, where U. S. troops are part of NATO-led peacekeeping forces. ..."

IS SDI TO BE NEGOTIATED, NOT IMPLEMENTED?

"Powell, giving his first lengthy television interview since taking office on Jan. 20, was also conciliatory toward Europe on U.S. plans for a national missile defense (NMD) opposed by Russia, China and some of Washington’s European allies."

" ‘It is not something that is going to happen without full consultation with our friends and allies and full consultation with the Russians, and beyond that, full consultation with other nations that have an interest in this is Asia – Japan, Korea and China,’ he said."

Charles Smith reports (WorldNetDaily.com, 7/10/00) that "The U.S. Air Force is running out of cruise missiles. ...

"[T]he U.S.A.F. arsenal dropped to an all-time low of 60 weapons. The Air Force missile shortage reportedly was caused by the Clinton administration, which used large numbers of the robot missile weapons for strikes against Iraq and Kosovo."

THE INTENTIONAL MISUSE OF U.S. ORDNANCE

"In 1996, Air Force officers were openly critical of the Clinton administration for wasting missiles, following strikes against Iraq. One specific example cited was the unsuccessful 'Desert Strike' operation, in which air-launched cruise missiles with fragmentary warheads were mis-targeted against hardened Iraqi bunkers on White House orders. The missile fragmentary warheads, designed to destroy 'soft' targets such as trucks, are ineffective against hardened concrete bunkers."

AIR FORCE ADVICE BYPASSED BY THE UNILATERAL DISARMER

"The White House reportedly bypassed the U.S.A.F. Air Combat Command and directly ordered airborne B-52s to fire the cruise missiles against the Iraqi bunkers. The missiles exploded harmlessly outside the Iraqi bunkers, causing no damage. The Iraqi bunkers were destroyed later by a second follow-on strike, using U.S. Navy Tomahawk missiles armed with conventional blast explosive warheads."

AMERICAN NUCLEAR STRENGTH SLASHED

"The U.S. Air Force is currently converting 322 nuclear-armed cruise missiles to carry conventional warheads in an effort to bolster stocks. The conversion to conventional warheads will leave the Air Force with less than 100 nuclear-tipped missiles for its strategic mission. The recent order of 618 new missiles is intended to boost the Air Force's total to nearly 1,000 conventional weapons. ..."

CRUISE MISSILE PRODUCTION LINE SHUT DOWN

"Boeing has offered to the Air Force to re-start a new air-launched cruise missile production line. However, Boeing sources told WorldNetDaily that most of its cruise missile manufacturing equipment has been sold or was dismantled after the Cold War ended. Other leading candidates include missile proposals from Lockheed/Martin and Raytheon. Air Force funding for the new cruise missile program was not included in the 2000 fiscal year budget. The service hopes to field the new missile by 2005 and plans to start development in 2001."

RED CHINA AND COMMUNIST KOREA BUILD UP AS AMERICA DRAWS DOWN

"The Clinton administration has been criticized previously for the cruise missile shortage. In 1999, Senator Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, blasted the Clinton administration for the current air-launched cruise missile shortage and warned that a shortage of the Navy's ship-launched cruise missiles also is looming. Murkowski said potential adversaries, such as North Korea, 'are beefing up their own missile capability.'

"The missile shortage appears just as the People's Republic of China is developing a new cruise missile reported to be nearly identical to the U.S. Navy Tomahawk. In an article published early this year by Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems editor Duncan Lennox, 'China's new cruise missile programme "racing ahead,"' the People's Liberation Army is already testing a copy of the U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile."

ADVERSARIES USE OUR TECHNOLOGY

"'The use of Western RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles since 1991 against six countries has allowed China opportunities in reverse engineering,' noted Lennox. 'More than 600 Tomahawk missiles were launched in attacks against targets in Iraq between 1991-98, in Bosnia in 1995, in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, and in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999. As there are at least six reported cases when these missiles landed more or less intact without the warhead exploding, some were believed to have been recovered and transported to China.'

"'A wide range of advanced technologies associated with cruise missile design may therefore have been made available to China,' wrote Lennox. 'These include: INS/GPS guidance; computer hardware and software; electronics; power supplies; airframe; wings; fuel system; and small turbofan engines.'"

RED CHINA HAS NUCLEAR CRUISES

"China's development of a nuclear-armed cruise missile was first reported in a 1995 Russian document that suggested that a complete production facility was transferred to Shanghai. According to Lennox, China is already deploying this new long-range nuclear-tipped cruise missile."

2000km TARGET RATING

"'Recent developments within China's new cruise missile programmes, although not confirmed officially, indicate that rates of progress have been faster than anticipated,' wrote Lennox. 'Reports suggest that an improved engine became available in 1992, and that an HN-2 version entered service in 1996 with a range increased to between 1,500 and 2,000km.'

"'A warhead weight of 300 to 400kg is expected with this design, which could be nuclear with a yield of 90kT or high explosive submunitions,' wrote the Jane's defense editor. 'Guidance in mid-course is inertial, with terrain comparsion and possibly GPS updates. Terminal guidance is believed to be by terrain comparison, using a TV camera to view the target area and refine the aim point.'"

U.S. IS VULNERABLE FROM LAND, SEA, AND AIR

"In contrast to the Jane's article, the new Chinese cruise missile program received little interest in a June 2000 Pentagon report on the future course of military-technological development in the People's Liberation Army.

"'China also is developing LACMs (land-attack cruise missiles),' states the June 2000 Defense Department report. 'These missiles appear to have a relatively high development priority. Chinese research and development of LACMs is being aided by an aggressive effort to acquire foreign cruise missile technology and subsystems, particularly from Russia. The first LACM to enter production probably would be air-launched and could be operational by mid-decade.'

"Yet, a newly published report shows that dangerous cruise missile inventories held by potential U.S. adversaries are actually at an all-time high. According to a just-published article in the U.S. Naval Proceedings by Brigadier Gen. Bruce Byrum U.S.M.C., 'Cruise Missile Defense From the Sea?' the airborne robot bomb is the 'weapon of choice' for future dictators.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness warns (CMR Notes, June 2000) that promotion of feminist and homosexual egalitarianism as the highest priority for the military over the objective of military readiness "inevitably leads to women in all combat positions, and open homosexuality in the military. It also leads to collateral policies that detract from readiness and the needs of the military."

About mounting pressures, Donnelly observes that there is "reason for concern...about mounting pressures from international courts and mandates associated with the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations. Demands for 'consistency' with our allies could force America to adopt problematic policies that potential adversaries would never accept."

CANADA'S EXAMPLE IS A WARNING

Donnelly points out that "Recent budget cuts have created severe shortages and hardships in the Canadian Forces (CF), but the Advisory Board has nevertheless insisted that 'The goal of diversity in the CF should not and must not be compromised by budgetary limitations.' Hence the push for a hugely expensive proposition, the assignment of women to submarines, and a number of costly luxuries that are collateral to social change. Examples include a tax-funded 'gender-reassignment' sex-change operation for a homosexual soldier, $2.4 million to design a 'combat bra' and other items for pregnant combat soldiers, all-inclusive sensitivity training programs, and recruiting posters that show images of 'people working together' instead of pictures of tanks, ships, and fighter jets."

Mark Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, writes (Wall Street Journal, 8/1/00, p. A22) that "To preserve their national-security lead, Republicans will speak some patriotic clichés, harvest a few points, and quickly scuttle away, for there are themes they do not want to touch and facts they do not wish to mention."

WHILE AMERICA SLEEPS

"No one will state that the lion has not lain down with the lamb and that eventually we will fight again. No one will state that, if we do not take care, Americans, perhaps those now playing in our schoolyards or resting in their mothers' laps, will die in enormous numbers in a war that will seem to have no end. No one will state that the president of the United States, while receiving large illegal campaign contributions from China, transferred to China technology that it is using now in a vast military buildup that someday we will face. And no one will dare America to put aside for a moment the domestic questions that, had it been as careless of vigilance in the past as it is now, it would not now be free to dispute.

"To do so in the richest, most powerful country on earth would be as unnecessary as counting the lifeboats upon boarding the Titanic. The next war will be a cyber war. There will be no corpses. The Internet will win it for us as our 'gender'-normed troops tap at their laptops. We think this way because we have forgotten that soon after the builders of the Titanic were in their dinner jackets, preparing to eat lobsters, they were in their life jackets and the lobsters were preparing to eat them. ...

"The sorry state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization makes exhortations to multilateralism ring hollow and false, or perhaps stupid. And the administration must pretend that China is not a vast storm in the gathering, or how else to excuse its ready provisioning to China of the most dangerous military technologies? ...

"It is necessary to create superlight army divisions and huge special operations echelons, but madness to assume that heavy formations are no longer of use, especially in light of the fact that just nine years ago we successfully fought the largest single armored battle in the history of the world."

WE MUST REBUILD OUR NAVY

"The navy is a splendid advantage in regard to China, in that except for South Korea, America's major allies in the region are all on islands. And even if, in an era when foreign basing is difficult or impossible, Bill Clinton is willing to scrap one-half the fleet and forgo the priceless strategic advantage of mastery of two-thirds of the earth's surface, his successor should reverse course, bring back John Lehman, and go down to the sea in ships."

U.S. TROOPS MUST BE TRAINED FOR WAR, NOT FOR "PEACEKEEPER"

"The American soldier must train exclusively for battle against a first-class adversary. He must not be used as a drug policeman, to save endangered crocodiles, or to referee groups of psychotic Balkan peasants."

THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT MUST END

"The United States Army is not and should not be a gendarmerie. That should be left to the French. Nor should the armed forces be a laboratory of feminism. Let America lead rather than follow the supposedly enlightened nations by excluding its mothers and daughters from combat rather than thrusting them into it. And whoever it is that does our fighting, we can take steps to keep them whole by abolishing single-supplier procurement and restoring the duplicative competition that results nonetheless in better and more reliable weapons and soldiers who survive. Lives are more important than money."

Tom Stuckey reports for the Associated Press (Washington Times, 7/23/00, p. C13) that "The Navy's departing top-ranked officer warned Friday that national security will be at risk unless the country spends more money on its armed forces.

"The Navy fleet is in danger of falling below the point where it can protect the United States, Adm. Jay L. Johnson said at his retirement ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy. ... The number of ships in the fleet is down to 315 and the number of aircraft to 4,100, he said.

"'We need to build eight to 10 ships a year and 200 aircraft just to maintain the fleet,' Adm. Johnson said, but under current funding projections that will not happen. ..."

ONE PER CENT BOOST IS NEEDED

"Saying the United States now spends about 3 percent of the gross national product on defense, Adm. Johnson said an additional 1 percent would help rebuild military forces to the strength that is needed for national security."

The Washington Times (12/3/99, p. 1) reports that "The Army is planning to make more job slots available to women in a new program dubbed "GAEA" after a mythological Greek goddess whom service documents describe as the 'Mother of the Titans.' ...

"GAEA is an acronym for General Apportionment of Enlisted Accessions. As early as January, it is to become the Army's new model for how to allocate jobs among specialties open to both women and men. ...

"'GAEA is flexible, user friendly, can incorporate future personnel policies, increases total authorizations available for female soldiers,' the Army documents state.

"GAEA is being developed as the Army is encountering problems keeping female soldiers through their first three-year term.

"Nearly half of all enlisted women drop out, due to injuries, illness, pregnancies or discouragement with military life. Less than one-third of Army men fail to serve their first term. ... The Army is recruiting a higher percentage of women. the goal today is 20 percent of 80,000 annual inductees, up from 12 percent in 1986."

MORE WOMEN, FEWER MEN

"The draft plan's first page includes this passage: 'GAEA: Personification of the earth. ... First being that sprang from chaos ... Mother of the Titans.' ... It just so happened, the officials said, that when GAEA took shape the computer model lowered the number of jobs that must be filled by men from 58,682 to 17,496 among 222,215 slots open to both sexes. ... Of the Army's 390,000 enlisted soldiers, about 58,000, or 15 percent, are women. ...

"Concerning the statement that some commanders already believe they have too many women, Col. Alford said, 'That was our snap judgment. ... Some come on line and say "we have too many." But that kind of flies in the face of policy....It becomes a concern when soldiers get pregnant and can't do their jobs. That is a readiness problem.'"

Dirk Johnson reports (New York Times, 10/18/99, p. A12) that "In a thunderous exclamation point to the end of the cold war, some 150 steel and concrete silos, once the launching tunnels of the nuclear Minuteman III missiles, are being blown to bits by dynamite. ...

"To fulfill the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, the Grand Forks Air Force Base is overseeing the destruction in North Dakota of roughly one silo a week for the next three years. The first two silos were demolished just weeks ago. The nuclear missiles themselves were removed from 1995 to 1998. In all, 150 silos in North Dakota will be destroyed, with the next dynamiting scheduled for Wednesday.

"Veit & Company, a demolition contractor, is destroying the silos, which reach more than 60 feet into the earth. Workers lace each silo with more than 800 pounds of dynamite, ammonia nitrate and fuel oil."

Tim Weiner reports (New York Times, 6/5/99, p. 1) that "Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, his bills stymied and his control of the House insecure, has decided to rewrite Republican spending plans and shift some money for increased military spending to ease cuts in social programs like health and education, key aides said today [June 4]. ...

"'[W]e're going to trim off some of the allocations for Defense, Treasury, the legislative branch, and feed some of that back' into bills financing programs for labor, health and human services, education, housing and veterans' affairs, a senior Republican aide said."

GOP LEADERSHIP RETREATS FROM PROPOSED DEFENSE BUILDUP

John Godfrey adds (Washington Times, 6/8/99, p. 1) that "an emergency bill enacted in May...added $3 billion for defense in 2000. That would have brought total defense spending in 2000 to $270 billion, about $19 billion more than this year.

"At the time, House GOP leaders promised the additional $3 billion would be used to rebuild the 'hollowed out' military left by years of neglect by the Clinton administration. ...

"Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, California Republican, said defense needs an increase of $28 billion, not $22 billion and anything else will only hurt the military."

SAVE THE TRIDENTS
WHY DOES THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS WANT TO DESTROY FOUR U.S. NUCLEAR SUBS?

Frank Gaffney writes (Washington Times, 5/19/99, p. A17) that "An early test of Congress' seriousness about the hemorrhage of American nuclear and other high technology stolen or diverted by Communist China will come in its action on a singularly dubious idea: A proposal unilaterally to eliminate 22 percent of the nation's most powerful and survivable deterrent force -- the Navy's Trident ballistic missile submarines."

BUSH'S "ARMS CONTROL" DISARMS AMERICA

"The impetus to reduce the Trident force from 18 subs to 14 -- which the Senate Armed Services Committee has adopted as part of its mark-up of the fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill -- arises from the START II Treaty. This accord, like the obsolete 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, is an artifact of earlier strategic era. START II was signed with the Soviet Union by the Bush administration in the twilight of the Cold War. It was approved five years ago by the U.S. Senate and ratified by President Clinton. ..."

RUSSIA STILL BUILDS ITS WAR MACHINE

"Despite the Kremlin's pleas of bankruptcy, Russia has found the resources to continue to modernize its thermonuclear weaponry and to make other, huge expenditures on activities apparently related to nuclear war-fighting. (For example, it is still building a deeply buried complex under Mount Yamantau in the Urals, a facility U.S. intelligence believes to be approximately the size of metropolitan Washington within the Beltway.)"

YELTSIN ADOPTS ANTI-U.S. FIRST STRIKE DOCTRINE

"Moreover, in the wake of its vehement disagreements with the United States over Kosovo, the Yeltsin government has taken to brandishing the nuclear threat repeatedly, declaring at various times that America and its allies involved in air strikes on Serbia would be targeted for missile attack, that Moscow was adopting a first-strike doctrine and that its strategic and battlefield nuclear forces would receive increased investment priority. ..."

CHINESE ANTI-SUB CAPABILITY REQUIRES MORE -- NOT FEWER -- U.S. SUBS

"Peter Lee, a one-time nuclear physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, provided China with detailed information about the technical workings and military applications of an extremely sensitive space-based radar system. According to the [New York] Times: 'Secrets that China stole in 1997 about a space radar that can expose submerged submarines could aid it in finding subs from commercial satellites or airplanes, and might also help it hide its own undersea weapons.'

"Whether this and other technology acquisitions by potential adversaries will have such a deleterious impact on the survivability of the U.S. Trident nuclear submarine force in the near-term or simply over the longer term, the fact is that the trend is in the wrong direction. This argues for having more of these vessels hidden in the broad ocean areas, not less."

GOP NEEDS TO LEARN THAT UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT IS A BAD IDEA

The U.S. Constitution directs, in Article I, Section 8, that "The Congress shall have Power To raise and support Armies...To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions".

EVEN BEFORE KOSOVO, UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT WAS BEING IMPLEMENTED

Bruce Bartlett warns (Washington Times, 4/21/99, p. A16) that "In just fiscal 1998 alone the Defense Department lost the following assets."

1353 FEWER PLANES IN JUST ONE YEAR

"Aircraft. The number of combat aircraft fell by 434 or 4.8 percent. Sixty-two airlift planes were also retired, and 857 other aircraft. In total, 1,353 planes were taken from service, reducing the number of aircraft available by 6.6 percent."

NAVAL STRENGTH CUT 16%

"Ships. More than 10 percent of all submarines were decommissioned, reducing the total to 123 from 137 the year before. Ten support ships were lost and 684 small boats. Overall, U.S. ship strength was reduced by 16 percent."

7187 TANKS AND COMBAT VEHICLES ELIMINATED

"Combat vehicles. The number of tanks were reduced by 827 or 7.6 percent. Other combat vehicles fell by 6,360 or 14.5 percent. Overall, available combat vehicles declined 13.1 percent."

$62 BILLION ANNUAL CUT IN DEFENSE SPENDING

"In real terms, adjusted for inflation, defense spending has fallen every year of the Clinton administration thus far, from $298.4 billion in 1992 to $236.6 billion last year (in 1992 dollars). While some of this was due to cutbacks in strategic arms resulting from the end of the Cold War, much also came out of conventional forces -- guns bombs, bullets, personnel."

BILLIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM IS NOT DEFENSE

"Moreover, increasing amounts of defense spending have been diverted into non-military operations, such as environmental cleanup. As a consequence, we now are finding the shelves are nearly empty, with many items needed to sustain combat operations in short supply."

PRODUCTION LINES CLOSED

"But resupplying our armed forces is not a simple matter. The production lines for many weapons have been shut down. It is not possible, for example, to quickly replace the F-117 Stealth fighter that was lost because they are no longer being manufactured. The same is true of air-launched cruise missiles, which have been heavily used so far in Yugoslavia.

"Of course, production lines can be reopened. But the engineers and other skilled workers needed to operate those lines are no longer available, neither are the specialized suppliers."

Paul Sperry writes in Investor's Business Daily (4/12/99, p. A1) that "At the same time China builds more lethal nuclear missiles -- using U.S. technology -- America's nuclear arsenal collects dust. It's been 10 years since the nation built a new missile, and seven since it tested old ones."

"NO BUILD-NO TEST" IS A DANGEROUS POLICY

"In fact, the Pentagon can't be sure existing missiles even work. And it won't be sure until around 2010, when weapons testing is scheduled to resume....

"China may have snatched the secrets to making a so-called electro-magnetic gun, which shoots pulse that can short computers and power grids....

"Not only is China stealing U.S. nuclear secrets, it's aiding the weapons programs of nuclear wannabes like Pakistan and Iran....

"Meantime, the nation's nuclear stockpile ages. More than half of U.S. bombs were first produced in the 1960s and 1970s.

"'Every weapon in our inventory has been designed for a 20-year shelf life,' said former Reagan Defense official Frank Gaffney. 'Most of them are approaching that, if not now past it. So there's a real question about how this stuff is working today.'...

"In conducting nuclear tests in support of our nuclear deterrent over the years, we just kept getting surprised by things that were supposed to perform in a certain way and didn't,' Gaffney said.

"By not testing, 'you also preclude the introduction of new weapons into the inventory,' Gaffney added. It's just too risky to mix untried designs into the arsenal, he explains."

RUSSIA AND CHINA BUILD -- U.S. DECONSTRUCTS

"When the Soviet Union collapsed at the start of the decade, the U.S. stopped making nuclear warheads (even though Russia kept churning them out at a rate of nearly 1,000 a year). In 1993, Clinton called a moratorium on warhead testing.

"Thus ended an era in which the nation upgraded its nuclear arsenal by continually replacing aging weapons systems with new ones."

CLINTON'S TEST BAN INCREASES NUCLEAR RISK

"Then in 1995, Clinton unveiled his Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to stop all levels of nuclear testing worldwide. In 1996, the United Nations endorsed it and Clinton signed it. It's up to the Senate to ratify it....

"'Nobody will be able to calibrate how good these new technologies are because there will be no tests against which to compare their results,' he said....

"As most U.S. missiles reach their expiration date, China keeps building new ones. Our newest nuke -- the W80 cruise missile -- was first produced in 1990. No newer models are in the works. Meantime, China is busy making its next generation of long-range land-based nuclear missiles -- the Dong Feng (East Wind) 31 and 41 -- and long-range submarine-based missiles -- the Julang (Giant Wave) 2."

CHINA'S LONG-RANGE NUKES ARE TARGETED AT U.S.

"These missiles can strike the U.S. Other than Russia, China is the only potential foe that can do that. And it's fully prepared to pull the trigger: At least 13 of its 17-plus long-range, land-based missiles are aimed at U.S. cities....

"Computer-based testing. If you're alarmed now by the reports of top-secret weapons data escaping from Los Alamos and Livermore, just wait until all that info is stored in computers designed to test weapons' performance, experts warn. At that point, 'you have effectively taken out of the hands of a relatively small, easily policed, generally highly patriotic and security-minded group of people the most sensitive information of all about nuclear weapons designs and phenomena, and put it into databases that are widely shared,' Gaffney said. 'That is simply a formula for disaster.'"

MAKING ESPIONAGE EASIER

"Exchange programs. They're another disaster waiting to happen, experts say. In 1994, the administration started a high-priority program of lab-to-lab cooperation between U.S. scientists and their counterparts in Russia and China. Just at Los Alamos, the visits now number over 100, a spokesman says.

"The technology exchange is usually one-way -- from us to them. Our experts show them, among other things, lab security techniques and ways to abandon underground testing.

"'An awful lot of very sensitive technology has gone from the U.S. labs to Russia and China in the interest of trying to help them monitor their facilities and safeguard them,' Gaffney said.

"Declassification. Early on, Clinton adopted a very liberal policy toward declassifying papers, effectively reversing President Reagan's restrictive policy set in 1982. It was part of an overall post-Cold War 'openness' policy at Energy.

"'This policy actually had the effect of turning shelves of restricted data into unclassified documents,' Gaffney said. '(Energy staffers) were obliged to do it at such an extraordinary speed that they weren't even able to review the boxes, let alone the files -- to say nothing of the individual papers.'...

"[I]n February 1996, Energy declassified the locations and forms of the federal plutonium reserve. Anyone with access to the Internet can find the data.

"For Chinese spies trying to collect such information, it 'did make it easier for them,' Wade said. 'There's no question about it.' Rose Gottemoeller, who heads Energy's national security office, says 3 million pages of classified documents are up for declassification in this year alone."

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) was a guest on Meet the Press (4/4/99), where he was asked his opinion on whether or not the U.S. should send ground troops to Kosovo.

CAN WE DEFEND AMERICA IF WE DISSIPATE OUR STRENGTH ON EUROPEAN WARS?

TIM RUSSERT: "Should we send American ground forces to Kosovo? Should Americans lose their life in this battle?"

SEN. JAMES INHOFE: "Tim, we should not. There's no reason in the world — we should not be in Kosovo. We should not have been in Bosnia. And we have a real serious problem right now. This president has decimated our ability to defend ourselves. And we're operating at about one-half the force strength that we were in 1991....Our concern is we should be able to defend America in the event something happens where our strategic interests are at stake...."

OUT NOW!

RUSSERT: "Senator Inhofe, should we just cease bombing, close down the operation and come home...."

INHOFE: "No."

RUSSERT: "...and say to the world, ‘The United States has lost the war’?"...

INHOFE: "We shouldn't have been over there to start with. Now, that we are there, I think we should have an exit strategy where we tell our partners, ‘Look, we've almost exhausted our supply of cruise missiles. We've used our resources. We've risked American lives. Now, on May 1st, we're going to be out of there...."

GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD WEEP AT BIPARTISAN INTERVENTIONISM

RUSSERT: "Senator Inhofe, if the United States withdraws on May 1, what will that do to the credibility, the image, the reputation of us as a superpower?"

INHOFE: "Well, first of all, I'd question the reputation we have right now because of this foreign policy of this president....Right now we could not defend America on two regional fronts...."

Tony Snow reports in The Washington Times (4/2/99, p. A16) that "We're running out of the president's weapon of preference, air-launched cruise missiles — an armament we stopped producing 13 years ago. The Air Force is planning to turn some nuclear weapons into conventional munitions. But if we continue using the bombs at the current pace, the cupboard could be bare by midsummer."

As reported by The Washington Post (4/3/99, p. A12), "Trying to push Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo has already cost the Pentagon an extra several hundred million dollars and the total could run well into the billions in the event of a prolonged fight, military analysts estimated yesterday....

"‘We haven't got a clue,’ replied one member of the Joint Chiefs, when asked the price so far of the 10-day-old bombing campaign...."

$350 MILLION PER WEEK DEPLETES U.S. DEFENSES

"A report issued yesterday by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) figured the first nine days of NATO's air campaign had cost the U.S. military anywhere from $350 million to $500 million.

"A substantial part of this resulted just from firing about 100 cruise missiles. The Navy's sea-launched version costs about $1 million apiece. The air-launched missiles, fired from B-52s, cost about $2 million each. The combined bill for the use of these weapons in Yugoslavia has topped $150 million.

"With the U.S. stockpile of air-launched cruise missiles now running dangerously low at fewer than 100 as a result of the weapon's heavy use in Yugoslavia and in Iraq last December, the Air Force has asked Congress to reprogram $51 million in fiscal 1999 funds for the conversion of 92 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles into conventional ones.

"Many of the precision-guided bombs being dropped by B-1 and B-2 bombers and assorted jet fighters, while considerably less pricey than the cruise missiles, also can easily add up. Figuring an average of two bombs released in each of the roughly 500 strike flights conducted so far, at an average cost of $60,000 per bomb, the CSBA estimated another $60 million spent on munitions.

"While the 250 U.S. planes employed in the air campaign are paid for, getting them to and from Yugoslavia also has involved extraordinary expense in some cases. The Air Force says, for instance, that each B-2 bomber costs nearly $10,000 per hour to operate — $2,100 for fuel alone. At that rate, each of the aircraft's 30-hour trips from its home base in Missouri to the skies over Yugoslavia has cost about $300,000...."

BILLIONS FOR OFFENSE, TOO LITTLE FOR DEFENSE

"Over the past nine years, the Pentagon has spent about $21 billion — or roughly 1 percent of its total funding — on various contingency operations. Most of these funds have been devoted to operations in Bosnia ($9.4 billion) and Iraq ($7.1 billion). For fiscal 2000, the Clinton administration has requested $1.8 billion for Bosnia and $1.1 billion for operations in and around Iraq."

The Washington Times (3/31/99, p. 1) reports "The Pentagon acknowledged yesterday that it is running out of one of its most potent and popular weapons, the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM). The missiles are unique, launched from aging B-52H bombers miles from their targets. The missiles can put high-explosive warheads on well-defended targets with pinpoint accuracy....

"To solve a problem already at hand, the Air Force asked Congress for permission to convert 92 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles into satellite-guided conventional missiles when its inventory dropped to 150. The 600-mile-range missile is no longer in production."

In an interview with CNN's Bernard Shaw, former Georgia Democrat Senator Sam Nunn spelled out his view that President Clinton's sexual misconduct is not a private matter, but did indeed endanger national security. Nunn told CNN that, by engaging in phone sex and other reckless behavior, Clinton opened himself up to exploitation by hostile foreign intelligence services.

CLINTON'S CORRUPT CONDUCT INVITES BLACKMAIL AND EXTORTION

As reported by J. Michael Waller in the Russia Reform Monitor (2/3/99), "‘For people to say that the President of the United States is having — allegedly — telephone sex, is strictly private, has nothing to do with official duties. It means they've never been acquainted with the world of espionage and the world of blackmail,’ says Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Nunn adds, ‘And, certainly, the White House is one of the most targeted places in the world in terms of foreign espionage. And so you have to ask the question: What if a foreign agent heard a young woman carrying on discussions, and then tapped her telephone? Those are the kinds of consequences and risks and dangers any time the president has conversations on the phone which could be intercepted and could be embarrassing to him personally.’"

WHEN "PRIVATE" BEHAVIOR BECOMES PUBLIC, IT IS "OFFICIAL" BUSINESS

"CNN's Bernard Shaw asks Nunn to elaborate on the ‘consequences.’ ‘The consequences are there's exposure and risk,’ he replies. ‘I have no idea whether there was any kind of intercept here. I'm not on the committees, but those questions have to be asked because you don't want any president, or any high-ranking official in a position to be leveraged by any kind of either foreign power or even domestic source. So that's the danger here. And private conduct that can be used in that way becomes a matter of great public concern.’ Nunn repeats, ‘these are questions that must be asked.’

‘They may not go to the articles of impeachment, but I keep hearing people say that strictly private behavior has nothing to do with official duties,’ says Nunn. ‘And I just don't see how anybody can come to that conclusion that knows anything about how the world operates.’"

According to The Washington Post (1/29/99, p. A7), a "Pentagon advisory group is proposing that four Trident submarines be converted into conventional missile platforms or covert troop ships if they are removed from active duty as nuclear missile submarines under a Navy plan awaiting approval from Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

"The four Tridents, part of a fleet of 18, were originally scheduled for decommissioning under plans established in the early 1990s, as part of the START II arms control reductions. Those plans are now on hold since a congressional amendment has prohibited reducing U.S. strategic forces below their START I levels until the Russian parliament, the Duma, ratifies START II.

"Although there are questions whether the Duma will act this year, Chief of Naval Operations Jay L. Johnson recently told Congress he was prepared to begin decommissioning four Tridents even without Moscow ratification. Cohen, according to sources, will support that position and request repeal of the congressional language."

The Washington Times (1/6/99, p. 1) reports that the "four military service chiefs testified yesterday that President Clinton's plan to bolster defense spending still falls significantly short of their needs to cure long-term readiness woes and to replace aging equipment."

IS CLINTON'S CHAIRMAN CLINTON'S MOUTHPIECE?

"The four-star officers also distanced themselves somewhat from the enthusiastic support Mr. Clinton's plan received from their chairman, Gen. Henry Shelton, who heads the Joint Chiefs of Staff and is Mr. Clinton's top military adviser...."

CLINTON'S $12 BILLION MAY BE ONLY $2 BILLION

"The chiefs testified in September they needed about $20 billion in fiscal 2000, which begins Oct. 1. Mr. Clinton proposed $12 billion — $8 billion short of the chiefs' goal. His proposal includes $2 billion to $4 billion in actual ‘new money.’ The remaining funds would come from within the defense budget based on fuel and inflation savings."

SLICK WILLY SPEAKETH DECEITFULLY

"‘It does not meet the stated need that we testified here before,’ Gen. Michael E. Ryan, Air Force chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee....Gen. Charles Krulak, Marine Corps commandant, who has complained for months about deteriorating trucks and aircraft, was more blunt.

"He said: ‘The administration's plan...will start to put an end to our neglect of force modernization. However, it still falls short of providing the resources we need to fully recover from the procurement recess in the most timely and cost-effective manner.’...

"Said Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, ‘[Mr. Clinton's] new proposal not only falls far short of what is required, but also has far less in substance than what it appears to be at first glance.’"

CLINTON DEFENSE BOOST INVOLVES SLEIGHT-OF-HAND

The Wall Street Journal (1/4/99, p. A40) adds that unmentioned "by the president is the starting point on which he is basing a $12 billion increase next year. The $269 billion in proposed defense spending is actually only about $2 billion over what Congress approved last fall for fiscal 1999....

"Of the proposed increase in fiscal 2000 defense spending, about $3 billion will go toward increasing military pay and retirement benefits. An additional $2 billion will go toward paying for the continuing U.S. peacekeeping operation in Bosnia. The remaining $7.5 billion increase will be divided among the military services."

Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb writes (The Wall Street Journal, 1/5/99, p. A22), that an "administration proposal that addresses pay, Bosnia and a few weapons systems is a small Band-Aid on a military that has been hemorrhaging for years...."

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION ARE INADEQUATE

"The end of the Cold War brought very few changes to the obligations faced by the Navy. It must operate continuously in today's low-threat conditions, and it must be capable of doing even more at the turn of a switch. Its presence around the world on the calmest of days is a signal of global stability, a message that the U.S. is looking after its economic and security interests. Its ability to maneuver and respond at crisis points is the single most important measure of America's day-to-day credibility.

"If the threat increases, the Navy-Marine Corps doctrine of amphibious power projection allows us to assert our interests without the diplomatic frustrations and operational vulnerability of ground bases. And the capability of putting a sustainable logistical train in place during major engagements, coupled with the power of the fleet, is an essential ingredient of national strategy....

"By fiscal year 2001 the Navy will have reduced the size of the fleet by 45% since my resignation as secretary of the Navy in 1988 — if it meets its procurement goals. Since 1992 alone, the size of the fleet has declined by 31% while operational tempo has increased by 26%. More than half the ships in the Navy are at sea on any given day, and a majority of those are forward deployed. The aircraft mishap rate is nearly double last year's, the highest level in the past five years. Recruitment is dramatically off, 7,000 below requirements, the worst of all the services. Enlisted retention is below requirements and all officer warfare specialties foresee serious problems ahead. Funding for ship and aircraft modernization has declined by more than 50% since 1990. Departing servicemen increasingly cite their disappointment in the quality of leadership as their reason for leaving."

TOO FEW SHIPS, TOO MANY MISSIONS

"Those of us who have been around for a while — including today's admirals — have seen all this before, although not at such a dangerous level. When I was commissioned in 1968 there were 931 combat-ready ships in the Navy. By 1979, in the midst of the post-Vietnam malaise, the Navy had bottomed out at 479 combatants. Then the Indian Ocean commitments began after the twin crises in Iran and Afghanistan. The operational tempo became unbearable as it became necessary to keep the fleet continually at sea. The carrier Independence made a 210-day deployment with eight days ashore. The Nimitz made a 146-day deployment with no days ashore. Ships fell into disrepair. People voted with their feet until the Navy was short 23,000 petty officers. My navy peers came up with a cynical slogan: Make commander and get your divorce....

"Even before becoming secretary of the Navy I had argued that we should return to historical normality by reducing our ground and tactical aviation presence in Western Europe and increasing the size of the fleet."

FROM 931 COMBAT-READY SHIPS DOWN TO 200?

"The morning I resigned as secretary rather than agree to a reduction in the fleet, I made a half-joking comment that I did not choose to be remembered as the father of the 350-ship navy. But never did I imagine that the Navy's leadership would allow the devastation that has now resulted in a 300-ship Navy, with the numbers continuing to sink....

"[T]he time has come for the admirals to take the lead in educating Congress and the public regarding the strategic and operational requirements that drive the Navy's needs. Indeed, it is past time. They didn't fight for 600 ships. They didn't fight for 400. They have been telling their sailors that a 300-ship Navy is fine, while they may be on the way to 200."

DEFENSE OUTLAYS REMAIN DANGEROUSLY LOW

Bill Gertz observes in The Washington Times (10/20/98, p. A4) that "The defense ‘emergency’ supplemental includes $113 million for operations, maintenance and personnel recruiting and retention efforts; $25 million to relieve problems associated with long deployments in the Navy; $239 million for Navy and Air Force spare parts and additional flight time pay; $302 million for depot maintenance; $347 million for Army and Navy operating forces support, and $24 million for Marine Corps combat equipment."

TOO MANY OPERATIONS --- NOT ENOUGH MONEY

"But John Hillen, a defense specialist with the Council on Foreign Relations, said the readiness funds are a ‘finger in the dike’ of mounting problems for the military services, which are being stretched thin by too many operations and not enough money...."

READINESS MAY REQUIRE ADDITIONAL $17 BILLION PER YEAR

"The Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Senate committee earlier this year that as much as $17 billion annually will be needed to improve readiness — the military term for war-fighting preparedness based on a combination of personnel, weapons, equipment and training...."

ONLY 1/9TH OF BUDGET ADD-ON GOES TO DEFENSE

"Steven Kosiak, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, questioned the relatively small piece of the $8.4 billion package going to readiness problems.

"‘It's noteworthy that in adding some $9 billion to defense, only about a billion is directly related to readiness, given all the attention that was focused recently on the problem,’ Mr. Kosiak said...."

$2 BILLION USED TO CONTINUE BOSNIA INTERVENTION

"A congressional defense aide said the peacekeeping funds will pay for all operations in Bosnia for the next year and will make up for the Clinton administration's failure to request any money for Bosnia in the $250 billion defense bill signed into law on Saturday."