Is Gore really military-friendly?

Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore has refuted claims made by
Republican nemesis George W. Bush that the Clinton-Gore administration
has virtually destroyed the U.S. military in the two terms both men have
been in office.

Earlier this week Gore and Bush hit the campaign trail in different
parts of the country, both touting their support of the U.S. military
and vowing to continue that support if elected Nov. 7.

Bush has accused the administration of over-deploying U.S. forces in
the face of budget cutbacks, leading to rampant morale problems, chronic
recruitment shortages in almost all military branches, and a decline in
overall unit readiness and maintenance of key weapons systems and
aircraft.

Gore countered those charges in a speech delivered Tuesday to the
Veteran’s of Foreign Wars convention in Michigan and defended the
Clinton administration’s “commitment” to the military.

“It’s that year-after-year commitment to a strong American defense
that makes me so concerned when others try to run down America’s
military for political advantage in an election,” Gore told his VFW
audience.

However, an analysis of military defense budgets through 1996 shows
marked decreases in overall spending, even as the administration
increased the number of deployments for U.S. forces.

According to the Center for Defense Information, the Pentagon’s budget in FY 1993 — the final year former President George Bush would have had to approve a defense budget — was $312.1 billion, down from $328.6 billion in 1992.

F-16 fighter launching air-to-air missile. The F-16 has been particularly hard hit during Clinton-era military cutbacks, suffering a series of crashes some have blamed on underfunded maintenance budgets.

Since 1993, the defense budget has fallen steadily. In 1994, the Clinton administration approved a $290.3 billion budget, which fell in 1995 to $272.1 billion. In 1996, the budget fell again to around $265.5 billion.

For FY 2000, the Clinton administration sought $271 billion in defense spending, and about $277 billion in outlays for FY 2001. This year’s increase includes a 3.7 percent pay raise for troops.

In 1994 the Clinton administration proposed no pay raise but a Democrat-controlled Congress granted the military a nominal increase.

Also, because of long-term U.S. military commitments to places like Bosnia and Kosovo, Congress within the past year has had to request emergency funding to maintain those operations — funding eventually agreed to by the administration, although initially opposed.

On Thursday, press reports blamed Bush running mate and former Defense Secretary Richard B. “Dick” Cheney for his attempts to shrink the U.S. military after the end of the Cold War.

Cheney “called for withdrawing tens of thousands of troops from Europe, canceling weapons programs and removing 442,000 men and women from the military over five years,” the Associated Press said.

However, Congress at the close of the Cold War era in 1989-1990 began calling for a so-called “peace dividend” savings by trimming the military and using more funds for domestic social programs.

“Dick Cheney oversaw the first steps of transforming our military in the post-Cold War era, which was necessary, but this administration has gone too far in proposing budgets that have left our military unprepared,” said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett.

U.S. soldier mingles with civilians in Kosovo. The Clinton administration has widened and lengthened U.S. military deployments for nearly eight years.

However, the Associated Press said, other “military experts agreed” that the elder Bush administration made big military cutbacks, “continuing a trend that began under President Reagan.”

Yet, according to the Center for Defense Information, the Defense Department’s budget increased each of the eight years Reagan was in office, after suffering huge declines and charges of having a “hollow military” in the Carter years following the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1975.

During the Reagan years, defense budgets were as follows (in billions of dollars):

1981 — $260.8; 1982 — $282.0; 1983 — $303.2; 1984 — $318.1; 1985 — $343.7; 1986 — $363.7; 1987 — $371.1; 1988 — $372.8; 1989 — $376.2.

The Defense budget fell for the first time in 11 years in 1990, CDI said.

Some political observers contend that the Clinton-Gore team pushed for military pay raises and more military spending this year to bolster Gore’s image as a supporter of the military, since Bush was likely to hit the issue especially hard during the campaign season.

With Bush’s selection of Cheney as his running mate, analysts said it showed that the Texas governor — who some criticize as inexperienced in international affairs — was serious about foreign policy and military issues.