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Post Info TOPIC: Pentagon belt-tightening will cut thousands of jobs


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Pentagon belt-tightening will cut thousands of jobs


WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that tough economic times require that he shutter a major command that employs some 5,000 people around Norfolk, Va., and begin to eliminate other jobs throughout the military.

The announcement was the first major step by Gates to find $100 billion in savings in the next five years. Gates says that money is needed elsewhere within the Defense Department to repair a force ravaged by years of war and to prepare troops for the next fight.

Gates and other Pentagon officials would not put a dollar figure on cuts outlined Monday, but the savings is expected to be less than what the individual military services are trying to trim on their own.

Big cuts are essential considering the straitened economy and the likelihood that Congress no longer will give the Pentagon the sizable budget increases it has enjoyed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Gates said.

The political backlash was swift and fierce from lawmakers fearful that jobs would be lost in their districts.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, said in a hastily called news conference that eliminating Norfolk's Joint Forces Command would deal a devastating blow to the state at a time of runaway federal spending on lower priorities.

Likewise, Republican Rep. J. Randy Forbes called the decision "further evidence of this administration allowing its budget for social change" and the "piecemeal auctioning off of the greatest military the world has ever known."



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Good

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You know I recall Clinton skimping on national defence to balance the budget too. Many say that's why 911 was able to become a reality. What do you think?

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I think it's because George ignored the intelligence briefieng titled "Usama Bin Laden determined to attack America."

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A little vague dont you think? I am sure at any given moment you could say that "Usama Bin Laden is determined to attack America."

The question is WHEN and WHERE. I want to see these "Intelligence Briefings" that actually state the details of the threat, as I am positive the national defense was at a skeleton crew and unable to gather enough intel to ward off the attack.



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Skellaton crew my ass. We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Ever hear of the military industrial complex? You should google it.

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Why don't you google my sac?

By the time Obama gets done spending on foolish entitlement programs we won't have a military at all. The only complex were going to have is another 911.



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Well, our gigantic military didn't stop the first one from happening, so whatever.

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Yeah, that's what happens when you start getting cheep when it comes to security.

The name Clinton comes to mind.

The Clinton Army
Charles R. Smith
Friday, April 11, 2003

Left Claims Clinton Helped Military

 

There are times that spin masters on the left get their facts so twisted that they end up looking like fools. It has been suggested by several spinners in Democrat Party ranks that it is "Bill Clinton's military" that is currently winning the war in Iraq.

The facts show that Bill Clinton halted military development, wasted critical weapons and allowed our forces to become dangerously weak.

No major weapon system was ever introduced during the Clinton years. In fact, many weapons systems were delayed or denied adequate funding.

No Patriot Here

For example, the Patriot missile was not improved during the Clinton years. The repeated pleas of U.S. military leaders that we needed some means to protect ourselves from the ballistic missile threat fell on deaf ears inside the Clinton White House.

Proposed upgrades to the Patriot were not tested, delayed or canceled by the Clinton administration in its feverish attempt to salvage the obsolete ABM treaty with the former Soviet Union. American national security came second to the wishes of Moscow.

The facts show that the Clinton administration traded and sold advanced U.S. military missile technology to China while denying funding to U.S. anti-missile systems that can counter the ballistic missile threat.

George Bush canceled the ABM treaty and immediately funded the Patriot PAC III program. However, events in the Middle East outpaced the frantic effort to ready the Patriot for war.

The war in Iraq forced the Bush administration to put Patriot PAC III into service without a formal testing regime. The PAC III has performed its job, protecting Kuwait and our troops from over a dozen Iraqi ballistic missiles. Yet two Coalition aircraft have also been downed by the untested Patriot, an RAF Tornado and a U.S. Navy F-18 Hornet. Clearly, if the Clinton administration had allowed Patriot to be tested, the friendly fire incidents could have been avoided.

Clinton Missed the Target

The Clinton administration frequently misused, micromanaged and wasted advanced military weapon systems. Critics of the Clinton administration often cite the failed Tomahawk cruise missile strikes at a Sudanese aspirin factory and poorly targeted missile strikes at empty caves in Afghanistan.

USAF officials confirmed that the President Clinton had a history of bungling missile strikes, in particular targeting the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) by micromanagement from the Oval Office.

One specific example cited was the unsuccessful 1996 Desert Strike operation where USAF ALCMs with fragmentary warheads were incorrectly targeted on hardened Iraq bunkers on White House orders.

The White House bypassed the USAF Air Combat Command (ACC) and directly ordered B-52s to fire the ALCMs at a hardened Iraqi air defense command bunker. The frag warheads exploded harmlessly outside the Iraq bunker, causing no damage.

The Iraq bunker was destroyed later by a second, follow-on, strike of Navy Tomahawk missiles with conventional blast explosive warheads.

Bomb-Happy Clinton

President Clinton was frequently criticized in Congress and the Pentagon for being "bomb happy. " Clinton's policy of bombing with high-tech weapons rapidly used up critical U.S. military inventories. The shortages, according to DOD officials, were a direct result of Clinton's Defense budget shortfalls for the hard-pressed U.S. military.

According to Defense planners, the most critical shortfall was in Air Launched Cruise Missiles. In late 1998, Boeing was contracted by the USAF to convert the final remaining 130 nuclear-tipped AGM-86B missiles into conventional "Bunker Buster" ALCMs with 2,000-pound warheads.

The U.S. used about 330 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 90 ALCMs during Desert Fox strikes now known as the "Monica Storm" campaign. All the USAF-launched ALCMs were Block 1 types equipped with heavy conventional warheads for bunker busting. In addition, 230 laser-guided bombs were used and about 250 dumb "iron" Mk. 82 bombs.

According to recon results of Desert Fox, the cruise missile and laser bomb attacks left most of Iraqi air defenses intact.

Era of Delay and Decay

The Clinton administration proposed that the B-1 bomber be retired early. The very same B-1 that recently dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on a bunker where Saddam may have been having dinner.

The Clinton administration delayed the Global Hawk, the Predator, the GPS-guided bomb systems and the Long Bow Apache, and wanted to trim the number of aircraft carriers down to eight.

Many of the weapons that the U.S. should be fielding now are still in development because of Clinton delays and under-funding.

The Clinton administration delayed the V-22 Osprey, F-22 Raptor, the Joint Strike Fighter and the Comanche attack helicopter. In addition, the U.S. military is still trying to make up critical shortages in the Milstar space communications program.

The Air Force, Navy and Marines are also scrambling to make up critical shortages in air-refueling tankers, frequently cut out of the Clinton budget requests.

During the Clinton years, the U.S. military had to cut valuable training, live-fire exercises and flight hours in order to meet demanding deployment funding spent in Haiti and Kosovo.

In fact, the U.S. Air Force had to turn to the United Arab Emirates in order to upgrade the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The UAE agreed to purchase advanced versions of the F-16 that the USAF could not afford. The UAE export funded further development of the F-16, which eventually made its way into the U.S. Air Force inventory.

Bill Clinton never helped the U.S. military and often hurt American national security. It is an outright lie to claim that Bill Clinton has any responsibility for the current success in the desert of Iraq.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/10/223653.shtml



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Newsmax huh? Aren't they run by a bunch of Republican operatives?

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I wasnt aware there were any "Republican Operatives"?

Do they dress diffrently than the regular military?

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