Posted on 04/18/2003 5:40:43 PM PDT by ddodd3329
Weekly Rant
The Truth About Clinton's Military
By Jonathan Clark
April 16, 2003
After three weeks of conflict, Baghdad fell to United States Marine forces. People in every corner of the world watched live as the Iraqi people aided by US Marines toppled the statue of Saddam and rode the head through the streets. Years of pent up frustration and fear were released for the whole world to see. It left the Arab Street in shock, it left 'Old Europe' looking very stupid, but as always the American left was out as soon as it happened attempting to spin the event.
It started on Wednesday with a column from Tribune Media Services writer, Matthew Miller. Miller, who it should be noted, served as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995 - the Clinton years part I. In his April 9th column he attempts to credit Bill Clinton with the effectiveness of today's military.
"The remarkable feats in Iraq are being performed by Bill Clinton's military.
This should be obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology or partisanship. We've been told repeatedly how much more lethal and accurate our forces are in 2003 than they were in 1991 - so much so that we needed only 250,000 troops to drive to Baghdad and change the regime, as opposed to the 500,000 we sent merely to oust Saddam from Kuwait in Gulf War I. Something like 90 percent of the bombs and missiles we use are "precision guided" today, versus roughly 10 percent back in 1991. The catalogue of how today's military is smarter, faster and better than it was back during Desert Storm is a credit to U.S. ingenuity and a source of national pride."
Miller then had the audacity to attempt a re-write of history to paint Clinton as a supporter of the military and sustained defense budgets.
"But politics explains why Bill Clinton insisted the Pentagon maintain a Cold War budget even without a Cold War, to protect his party's right flank."
I hate to confuse the situation with the facts Mr. Miller, but quite the opposite is true. The Clinton/Gore Administration stretched our military forces very thin from 1993 to 1999. In addition, they increased spending on social experiments while cutting defense spending.
Between 1960 and 1991, the United States Army conducted 10 "operational events." From 1991 through 1999, the Army conducted 26 operational events --- 2 1/2 times that number in 1/3 the time span.
As of 1999, there were 265,000 American troops in 135 countries.
Since the end of the Gulf War, our military has shrunk by 40 percent. Army divisions have dropped from 18 to 10. The Army has reduced its ranks by more than 630,000 soldiers and civilians and closed over 700 installations at home and overseas.
Since 1990, the Air Force has shrunk from 36 fighter wings (active and reserve) to 20. The Air Force has downsized by nearly 40 percent while simultaneously experiencing a fourfold increase in operational commitments.
At the height of the Reagan Administration build-up, the Navy had 586 ships. As of 1999, it had only 324. The Clinton Administration's blueprint called for that number to further drop to 305. If the rate of ship construction and retirement by this administration is continued, that number could fall to only 200 ships by 2020.
Since 1987, active duty military personnel have been reduced by more than 800,000. To illustrate that problem:
In June 1998, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group deployed with 770 fewer personnel than it did on its previous deployment three years before.
At about the same time, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, another carrier, began a 6-month deployment 464 people short of its 2,963 authorized billets.
In late 1998, the USS Enterprise deployed for the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf short 400 personnel.
In 1999, the Navy had a total of 22,000 empty slots in a 324-ship fleet.
In addition, the armed services suffered a severe ammunition shortfall going into the Kosovo engagement. According to the Service Chiefs, the FY99 ammunition shortfall for the Marine Corps is $193 million. For the Army in FY00, it is a shocking $3.5 billion.
Weekly Rant
The Truth About Clinton's Military - Continued
By Jonathan Clark
April 16, 2003
The equipment we have is aging:
The average age of the B-52H bombers-- put to use in the Balkans--is 40 years old.
The average age of the Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV) is 29 years old.
The design of the CH-46 helicopter--a Marine mainstay--is approximately 43 years old.
A-10 pilots flying over Kosovo were forced to spend their own money to buy inferior, off-the-shelf GPS receivers at local stores and attach them with Velcro to their planes to use in conjunction with their outdated survival radios should their planes crash.
At a congressional hearing held in February 1999 at the Navy's Strike and Air Warfare Center in Fallen, NV - the world-renowned "Top Gun" fighter pilot school - Members were told that mechanical problems had grounded 14 of the center's 23 aircraft.
In 1999, more than half of the B1-Bs at Ellsworth AFB were not mission capable because they lack critical parts.
And I can tell you that speaking with pilots first hand as of August 2001, they were complaining about the lack of flight time due to the age of the aircraft and the need for servicing and lack of replacement parts.
On Friday, the leading House Democrat, Nancy Pelosi chimed in with her two cents.
She said, "I have absolutely no regret about my vote on this war. The cost in human lives, the cost to our budget - probably $100 billion - we could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less. The cost to our economy. But the most important question at this time, now that we're toward the end of it is, is what is the cost to the war on terrorism?"
Pelosi talked of the toppling of Saddam's regime as if were some sort of public works project. And as Mrs. Pelosi praised the troops, she also said their success was owed "in large measure" to former President Bill Clinton.
Pelosi continued with the left's defense of Clinton saying "This best-trained, best-equipped, best-led force for peace in the history of the world was not invented in the last two years. This had a strong influence and strong support during the Clinton years," she said.
The problem with this line of reasoning besides it being factually incorrect is that if this is 'Clinton's Military', then this is also 'Clinton's Economy'. As always they want to have it both ways.
Funny how just last week, the pundits were blaming Bush for basically what amounted to their own impatience with how they thought the war should have progressed. Now that the success is so overwhelmingly apparent, they attempt to re-write history. The one thing that folks like Pelosi and Miller overlook is the intangibles. The biggest is the military's adoration of President Bush. From top to bottom, the U. S. military loathed his predecessor, Bill Clinton. They genuinely adore Bush. And it is a mutual adoration. This intangible piece provides motivation not seen during the Clinton years. From 1993 through 2000, our military had no clear focus. It was used primarily in diversionary tactics by Clinton when the heat of attention to his many scandals became more than he wanted to bear. Have we forgotten Clinton's military escapades into Haiti, Kosovo, Mogadishu and Waco?
And don't forget that the Franco-German wing of the Democratic Party put themselves in to a position in which America had to suffer a loss in this conflict in order for them to come out on top. They have done the same thing with domestic issues. They are continuing this failed strategy by attempting to 'raise the bar' on what defines success in Iraq. The problem is that it's not 'playing well in Peoria' anymore. More and more people are getting their news from reliable sources like Fox News. And after finding out how CNN withheld the truth about Saddam's brutality, more will follow.
The cold hard truth of the matter is that Rumsfeld and Franks put together a well motivated military force in short order that executed a well designed plan in which they overwhelmed the enemy and shocked the world.
Sermons over, pass the plate.
* Military Depletion Source: 1999 Congressional Fact Sheet
Klinton's Army was an extremely unfunny joke. For all of my problems with Bush, I do have to admit he's apparently done a fine job rebuilding the Army.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
According to this (tongue planted firmly in cheek) Bill Clinto created the whizbang hitech armed forces that routed Saddam:
Bush's Armyor Bill's?
Should Clinton share the credit for victory in Iraq?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, May 2, 2003, at 5:12 PM ET
At last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner, one gossip column reports, liberal comedian Al Franken went up to Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative deputy defense secretary and said, "Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?" Wolfowitz responded by proposing that Franken perform an anatomically impossible act.
The exchange was no doubt conducted in the spirit of good-natured invective that pervades these events (and perhaps under the influence of other spirits as well). But it does raise a serious question: How much of the swift U.S. victory in Gulf War II can be credited to decisions made by George W. Bushand how much to the legacy left by Bill Clinton?
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