Apologize if this has been addressed, but
the irony and hypocrisy is quite thick in the halls of the Pentagon this week:
Rising war costs and a stubborn budget deficit have forced the Pentagon to
propose billions of dollars in cuts to advanced weapons systems . . . .
The internal budget document, approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and leaked to reporters over the weekend, shows deep cuts to weapons programs once seen as the future of the military, including an Air Force advanced fighter plane, a stealthy Navy destroyer, a fleet of modernized transport aircraft and the next generation of nuclear submarines. Even President Bush's prized missile defense program would be trimmed by $5 billion. In all, cuts over six years would total $55 billion, mostly from the Navy and the Air Force.
Of course, this is the type of thing they accused Kerry of doing as Senator and predicted Kerry would do as President during the campaign.
Remember
these ads from BushCo?
Bush ads released April 26 recycle some distortions of Kerry's voting record on military hardware. We've de-bunked these half-truths before but the Bush campaign persists.
The ads -- many targeted to specific states -- repeat the claim that Kerry opposed a list of mainstream weapons including Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Apache helicopters, and also repeat the claim that he voted against body armor for frontline troops in Iraq. In fact, Kerry voted against a few large Pentagon money bills, of which Bradleys, Apaches and body armor were small parts, but not against those items specifically.
I remember them. The implication: that Sen. Kerry voted against weapons systems that are vital to our troops. These distortions became a central theme of the campaign, leading to "metaphors" like the infamous "spitballs" crowd-pleaser from Sen. Zell Miller (DINO-GA).
Now, the Bush administration is making the sort of deep and substantial cuts that it somehow predicted Kerry would make. In fact, "the Pentagon would trim $30 billion over the next six years from its original $89 billion defense buildup." Indeed, some experts are befuddled by some of these cuts:
But other defense experts say the budget request appears to lack any coherent vision. An extensive defense buildup has pushed military spending from $291 billion in 2001 to $437 billion in 2004, but it has yet to fundamentally replace the aging weaponry of the military services, said Andrew F. Krepinevich, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments' executive director.
Cutting future weapons purchases now would lock in what he called "a hollow buildup."
"If this is transformation, it's reactive transformation," he said. "What are these cuts saying beyond 'We've got a budget problem'?"
In fact, leading Republicans are annoyed (though you could surely argue that they are defending their homestate military economies):
Without doubt, Rumsfeld will face political challenges to his request. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) has singled out a proposal to retire one of the Navy's aircraft carriers.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), whose district includes giant shipmaker Bath Iron Works, went further. "It's truly mystifying and disturbing," she said. "What is their vision of the future that would suggest that America could live with a much-reduced Navy? We couldn't even anticipate where we are today . . . let alone looking 10 or 20 years down the road."
Long story short: the Bush administration has again returned to the well of hypocrisy.
Update [2005-1-5 13:33:23 by VirginiaDem]: One clarification: I am not really criticizing the cutting of weapons systems here. I myself lack the expertise to know if these cuts are prudent or not. The point of this diary is really a complaint about the hypocrisy of an administration that blasts (with distortions) an opponent's alleged cutting of weapons systems, and then goes ahead and does the same after the election is over. So, it's the hypocrisy of this administration (as well as its dishonest campaigning) that this diary targets. Let me steal the words of cato below to make this more clear:
My own thoughts center on the irony of the situation, that kerry was ripped for voting against some outdated weapons systems during the campaign. And now there's narry a peep from the noise machine about how rummy and bush are 'destroying the military.