Replies

You ask, "what we'd be stuck with?"

The article says Kerry wanted to cancel: "the MX missile, the B-1 bomber, the Tomahawk cruise missile, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot missile and four fighter aircraft programs."

- The MX missile had a long and troubled gestation; it was battled at every turn by the Soviets and by those in Congress who identified with and wanted to support them. If it had not been deployed, our only land based missiles would be obsolete and vulnerable 1960s era Minuteman III missiles. That would have made us totally dependent on submarines and manned bombers. However, Kerry and his friends were successful enough that we have had to keep 500 of the aging Minuteman rockets on duty -- even though they can easily be neutralized by an enemy first strike (even a conventional one) thanks to improved weapons accuracy.
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/missiles/Peacekeeper/Peacekeeper_Missile_History.htm
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/missiles/Minuteman/Minuteman_Missile_History.htm

The B-1 (and B-2, which Kerry also opposed) was a strategic bomber designed to penetrate enemy air defenses. It has proven adaptable to the GWOT. Cancellation of the B-1, desired by the Soviets, and Kerry, would have required us to retain more B-52s in service, as well as the troublesome and high-maintenance F-111F and FB-111. This would translate directly into more crew deaths (in the 111s) and more deaths by supported ground troops (because the 111 could carry only a modest bombload, and the 52 can't operate while enemy air defences are still live).

The Tomahawk cruise missile was a revolutionary weapon which promised the accuracy of air-delivered weapons without risking human life. Had the Tomahawk been cancelled, the thousands of strikes it has made in the Gulf wars and Balkans would have had to be delivered by aircraft, putting human crews at risk, and certainly losing a percentage of them.

The Apache helicopter (AH-64A and AH-64D Longbow) has an unusual record: it is the most shot-down aircraft of the present war, which indicates how routinely Apache pilots fly into harm's way. Despite that, the crewmembers of all those shot-down helicopters have survived, which indicates how well it was designed and built. In two cases complete Apache units have lost functionally all their aircraft to enemy defences without one human suffering a wound. Kerry would have the Army still flying the Bell AH-1 HueyCobra, built as a stopgap in the 1960s and with nothing like this record for crew preservation (indeed, it was rare for HueyCobra crewmen to survive a shootdown). This would mean going without helicopter gunships entirely, because in the high altitudes and hot weather of Afghanistan and Iraq, the single-engine Huey can't take off armed.

This is apart from the damage to personnel, operations and maintenance that "$45 billion to $53 billion [cut] from the defense budget" would have done.

As far as the four fighter aircraft programs, without hearing them named I can't really cite specifics, and I don't care to suffer through miles of Kerry "I hate the evil warmongering military" tape to dredge them up. But the result would be we'd still be flying the Vietnam era F-4, F-111, A-6 and A-7. While those machines were state of the art thirty or forty years ago, the fact that primitive Vietnam was able to shoot down hundreds of these planes, in many cases killing or capturing (which might have also been a death sentence) the crews, tells us that they are not what we need for 21st Century warfare.

It's fair to say that Kerry was careless with the lives of our soldiers and airmen. It's fair to say that he has broken faith with them, ever since his 1970 swing to the enemy side on Vietnam.

He is also on record as wanting to stop "substantially all activity of the CIA." Oh, that's a real stroke of genius. I know a lot of people think that the CIA is as wrong as two boys at the wedding altar, but remember, you only hear about the screwups. That's the nature of secret work.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F