MPH,
I realize its very hard for you..all that built up anger about who started the cuts in military funding. I feel your pain, man! I'm sure you are POed that every month Halliburton and Blackwater got their payments from Bush/Cheney for their no-bid contracts in Iraq. At the same time,OUR soldiers in Iraq were having to spend their own money to buy bullet-proof vest because our Defense Department wouldn't provide them ones that would stop a BB bullet. Sadly, the company that OUR defense department had contracted to prove shoddy vests admitted they were knowingly providing vest that they KNEW were defective. Geez! If that wasn't bad enough, our military leaders on the battle field requested specially equipment vehicles to blunt the force of bomb blast that at the time was the number one killer of OUR troops. Rumsfeld answer to this request was to put armor plating on Humvees, resulting in the Humvees breaking down in battle zones, leaving our troops sitting ducks to enemy fire. When our troops were wounded in these sitting duck vehicles they were flown back to squalid conditions at Walter Reed hospital...basically pig stys for our soldiers. The Brooks Army Medical center in San Antonio, the major hospital for soldiers receiving burn injuries went for months not having money to pay their electricity bills.CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Terminate The Apache; According to the RNC, AH-64 Apache Helicopters Were Crucial to Operation Iraqi Freedom.In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, Cheney said, “This is just a list of some of the programs that I've recommended termination: the V-22 Osprey, the F-14D, the Army Helicopter Improvement Program, Phoenix missile, F-15E, the Apache helicopter, the M1 tank, et cetera.” In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Cheney said, “The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward, AH-64…I forced the Army to make choices…So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out.” [Cheney testimony, Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, 6/12/90; Cheney Testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 7/13/89;
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Cheney Cut Program, Costing Jobs. Cheney plan cut 9 of original 25 ships planned, putting shipyard in jeopardy [States News Service, 8/14/90; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9/24/90]
BRADLEY FIGHTING VEHICLES: THE KERRY RECORD
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Bush-Cheney Budget Terminated The Bradley. “Major weapons killed include the Army's M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Navy's Trident submarine and F-14 aircraft, and the Air Force's F-16 airplane. Cheney decided the military already has enough of these weapons.” [Boston Globe, 2/5/91]
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Terminate The Black Hawk. The Pentagon’s internal budget deliberations recommended termination of the Black Hawk program under Secretary Cheney.” [Aerospace Daily, 5/15/90]
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Cheney Proposed Cuts to B-2 Program, According to the RNC, B-2s Were Crucial to Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the Boston Globe, in 1990, “Defense Secretary Richard Cheney announced a cutback… of nearly 45 percent in the administration's B-2 Stealth bomber program, from 132 airplanes to 75…” [Boston Globe, 4/27/90; From RNC Research Memo, “Kerry’s Military: As He Would Like It,” 7/18/03:
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Cutting C-17 Program. In 1990, Cheney proposed cutting 90 C-17 Air Force cargo transport planes [Newsday, 2/5/91; NY Times, 1/8/91; Boston Globe, 4/27/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90]
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Cutbacks Hit Industry Hard: Workers and the industry were hit hard by Cheney’s decision for “major cuts” in the F/A-18 program and upgrades to the F-18 in the late 1980s [Flight International, 6/27/90; Los Angeles Times, 12/17/89; Aerospace Daily, 5/26/89; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 5/1/89
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CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Cheney Proposed Cutting F-16 Aircraft, According to the RNC, F-16s Were Crucial to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Cheney said, “If you're going to have a smaller air force, you don't need as many F-16s…The F-16D we basically continue to buy and close it out because we're not going to have as big a force structure and we won't need as many F-16s.” According to the Boston Globe, Bush’s 1991 defense budget “kill[ed] 81 programs for potential savings of $ 11.9 billion…Major weapons killed include[d]….the Air Force's F-16 airplane.” [Cheney testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 2/7/91; Boston Globe, 2/5/91; From RNC
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: No New Missiles Requested Even As Stocks Depleted Before Gulf War, Cutbacks Lead To Layoffs: Cheney’s defense budget was so pared-down that it didn’t include any funds for more Tomahawk missiles in 1991, despite stocks rapidly diminished by the military action in the Persian Gulf. Cuts in 1990 led to layoffs throughout the nation. [Washington Post, 2/5/91; Aerospace Daily, 1/23/91; AP, 6/20/90]
CHENEY'S SORRY RECORD: Move Hurricane Plane Out of Dept. of Defense, Move Considered Dangerous. In 1990, Cheney pushed a potentially dangerous move by trying to shift the WC-130 Hurricane Hunter planes from the Department of Defense and into the Department of Commerce. The WC-130 is used to track Hurricanes and warn coastal residents in time to evacuate the area. In July 1990, Cheney ordered that the Air Force halt all WC-130 flights by October 1, 1990 and turn the mission to the Commerce Department. Reed Boatright, a spokesman for the Commerce Department said, “we are not in a position to accept planes either financially or infrastructure wise.” According to Jerry Jarrell, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, “It would be devastating” if the Commerce Department was unable to pick up the WC-130 after Cheney released it from Defense. Today, the WC-130 remains at Defense. [UPI, 7/11/00] |
