Word: rumsfeld
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...Then came the tax cut, and the slowing economy and the shrinking surpluses, and the politically uncomfortable reality that alterations in the way the Pentagon waged war would have to come, to a large degree, out of its own pockets. All the while, Rumsfeld kept trudging, convening a task force headed by serious-minded (and Pentagon-scaring) restructuring guru Andrew Marshall and reporting to a hostile Congress that difficult decisions would have to be made...
...Rumsfeld?s original plan - reportedly, spend twice the extra $18.5 billion the White House sent the Pentagon?s way - certainly would have made all those choices easier to stomach. As it is, Bush?s earmarked funds went to missile defense and status-quo basics like parts and equipment and improved living standards for soldiers, and the disagreements between the military establishment?s soldiers and civilians became measurably sharper. And Rumsfeld is on the brink of a choice that - at least for the time being - has little or no chance of making its way into the field...
...choice was laid out in two reports that are on Rumsfeld?s desk right now. One, by civilian analysts in the Pentagon?s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, concluded that the armed forces could be reduced by well over 10 percent without strategic detriment - with the savings getting ploughed back into the sort of high-tech weapons systems and generation-skipping investments that Bush talked about. The other, from aides to the generals that make up the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was simpler: Keep the military at its current size of 1.4 million people on active-duty...
...twisting) from on high, Congress has never discovered any inclination to approve the sort of weapons-scrappings, base closings, and personnel cuts that the math demanded - not when the livelihoods of constituents were on the line. That was apparent at budget time at the end of June, when Rumsfeld proposed cutting the B1 bomber fleet - and just last week, 34 of the 60 members of the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee wrote to Rumsfeld warning him against trimming the Army...
...reason Bush has let Rumsfeld dangle is that Democrats are lining up to do the previously unthinkable: make military readiness their issue. Even Hillary Clinton can be heard harping on the trade-offs between Bush?s tax cuts and his Pentagon budget, and when a Clinton - any Clinton - and a Daschle start threatening to pick up votes on a military issue, Bush knows it?s time to pull his political neck out of harm...