Cheney pared defense while Pentagon chief, go get him JFK!!

[Failure]

THE BOSTON GLOBE

April 29, 2004

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been charging that John Kerry would be a dangerous president because he opposed many key weapons that the military now relies on, himself presided over the biggest cutbacks in defense programs in modern history when he was secretary of defense under the first President Bush.

As Pentagon chief from 1989 to 1993 Cheney canceled or cut back many of the same weapons programs – bombers, fighter planes, battle tanks – that he says Kerry tried to deprive the armed forces of.

Many of the Cheney-era cuts were made at the end of the Cold War, when the administration of President George H.W. Bush was seeking to reduce the size of the military. But some of these downsizing efforts would have affected the military of today.

Cheney proposed, for instance, disbanding part of the Army's Fourth Infantry Division, the unit that captured former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein last December, according to Congressional Quarterly.

The latest Bush-Cheney campaign ad depicts weapons such as the B-2 stealth bomber flying over a battlefield and then disappearing into thin air, attempting to convince voters that if Kerry prevailed back then, U.S. military forces would be underequipped.

Yet Cheney canceled the B-2 bomber program after 20 planes, even though the Air Force insisted it needed 132. He opposed upgrading the M1 Abrams tank, recommended killing the latest model of the F-14 fighter jet and opposed buying more F-15s.



This is DAMNING!!! Let's see this in a "troubling" commercial...what do you think?
failure.

[wryter2000]

1. link?

Great article. Do you have a link?

[Failure]

2. Here you go!

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040429/news_1n29cheney.html

[Mountainman]

7. In the San Diego Union no less !

When I lived in San Diego I hated that right wing rag.

[Failure]

3. kick n/t

[chelsea0011]

4. The worst thing about the latest ad is the topic that says Kerry

doesn't want service men wearing body armor and then a soldier slowly turns and faces the camera. In other words...Kerry wants me dead. It is the single nastiest ad this year, but it is early.

[achtung_circus]

5. I've seen the new ads talking about the voting record of Kerry

The B-2 was a boondoggle from the word "go".
It is a high-threat penetration bomber- useful against terrarists?

The Patriot was hyped as shooting down Scuds in GW 1, later shown to be falsely inflated stats, useful against Terrarists?

The Bradley had initial problems with armour and flammability. Useful in an RPG rich environment like Iraq, BUT Iraq wasn't initially about terrarism

my understanding of the American budget process is that there are so many extraneous items attached to unrelated bills and ongoing votes and negotiations on even simple matters that to use a vote on a single issue is meaningless.

Am I wrong?

[Failure]

8. nope your right...lotta "pork" in those bills...n.t

[revcarol]

6. I still don't get it....

Why the great stampede to prove you are the most macho by

1)voting for the most expensive war toys?

2)was the most war-like or served in the military?

DAMN IT TO HELL!! I want a President who will REDUCE THE DAMN BLOATED DEFENSE BUDGET.I want A President who will RELY ON DIPLOMACY, not military might.(Kerry won't reduce the defense budget, except incidentally.)

I want a President who will respect those who did not serve,(as most of this generation.)Yeah, Bushies brought it on, but we have to GET AWAY FROM THE "MY BALLS ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR BALLS" and do a lot more for PEACE.

[Failure]

9. amen. nt