Subject: Clinton cutbacks stopped modernization/ 8 years of Clinton decimated military
 

U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe said Thursday that cutbacks during the Clinton administration resulted in the lack of armor and other material faced by U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

The Oklahoma Republican, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that in 1991, U.S. armed forces were armed with "a Reagan military," and had more funding and ordinance.

However under Clinton, projects were cut and "modernization stopped."

The Army and the Pentagon have come under sharp attack for the lack of armor on many of the Humvees, trucks and other vehicles U.S. troops use in Iraq. Insurgents using roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades have regularly targeted military vehicles, killing numerous U.S. troops.

Criticism intensified last week after a U.S. soldier complained publicly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait that troops had to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal to protect their vehicles.

The Army said Wednesday it would spend $4.1 billion to armor all military wheeled vehicles in Iraq by June, with most of the money expected to be used on trucks.

Inhofe said Rumsfeld in his confirmation hearing addressed the need to fund the military.

Inhofe said that during war, the U.S. historically spends 5.7 percent of its gross domestic product on military needs.

"Today it's 3.8 percent," he said. "In order to give us what we need, we'd need to spend 4.5 percent of the GDP on military."

Inhofe said the U.S. also needs to boost its end strength, or "the number of boots on the ground."

"But modernization is not that expensive," he said. "We end up funding it as emergency supplement."

During a visit to the Phoenix before visiting with patients at the VA Medical Center, Inhofe also touted the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, which would help fund federal highway acts. Inhofe is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"We passed a real good bill," he said.

The act doubles funding of the bridge discretionary program to $100 billion per year, he said.

"Given Oklahoma's large backlog of bridge work, this will give the state the ability to get more dollars over the life of the bridge to repair bridges," he said.

Inhofe said the five main issues facing the upcoming Congress are major tax reform, tort reform, the highway bill, the energy bill and getting conservative, family-oriented judges on the bench.

muskogeepheonix.com
By Cathy Spaulding
December 17, 2004