JOHN KERRY'S DEFENSE DEFENSE : Setting his voting record straight

John Kerry's Defense Defense
Setting his voting record straight.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004, at 3:41 PM PT

Against defense? Not Kerry

Before George W. Bush's political operatives started pounding on Johh
Kerry for voting against certain weapons systems during his years in
the Senate, they should have taken a look at this quotation:

After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we
will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel
the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for
our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of
the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more
advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save
us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will
have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office.

The speaker was President George H.W. Bush, the current president's
father, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992. They
should also have looked up some testimony by Dick Cheney, the first
President Bush's secretary of defense (and now vice president), three
days later, boasting of similar slashings before the Senate Armed
Services Committee:

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year
defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace
dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of
so-called peace dividend.

Cheney proceeded to lay into the then-Democratically controlled
Congress for refusing to cut more weapons systems.

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and
sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend
money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight
budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s,
F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.

The Republican operatives might also have noticed Gen. Colin Powell,
then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings,
testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy
aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a
million men and women, to say noting of "major reductions" in fighter
wings and strategic bombers.

Granted, these reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union's
dissolution and the Cold War's demise. But that's just the point:
Proposed cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular
weapons system doesn't necessarily indicate indifference toward
national defense.

Looking at the weapons that the RNC says Kerry voted to cut, a good
case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2
bomber and President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile-defense program)
should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14,
F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn't really vote
to cut them.

The claim about these votes was made in the Republican National
Committee "Research Briefing" of Feb. 22. The report lists 13 weapons
systems that Kerry voted to cut—the ones cited above, as well as
Patriot air-defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and AH64
Apache helicopters, among others.

It is instructive, however, to look at the footnotes. Almost all of
them cite Kerry's vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on
Oct. 15, 1990. Do a Google search, and you will learn that S. 3189 was
the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273
was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons
systems specifically.

On a couple of the weapons, the RNC report cites H.R. 5803 and H.R.
2126. Look those up. They turn out to be votes on the House-Senate
conference committee reports for the defense appropriations bills in
October 1990 (the same year as S. 3189) and September 1995.

In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five
Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years
ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote
against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC
takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a
dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could
have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire
U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming
that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of
plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank
dishonesty.

Another bit of dishonesty is RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie's claim, at a
news conference today, that in 1995, Kerry voted to cut $1.5 billion
from the intelligence budget. John Pike, who runs the invaluable
globalsecurity.org Web site, told me what that cut was about: The Air
Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much
money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never
launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not
to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had
canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his
colleagues.

An examination of Kerry's real voting record during his 20 years in
the Senate indicates that he did vote to restrict or cut certain
weapons systems. From 1989-92, he supported amendments to halt
production of the B-2 stealth bomber. (In 1992, George H.W. Bush
halted it himself.) It is true that the B-2 came in handy during the
recent war in Iraq—but for reasons having nothing to do with its
original rationale.

The B-2 came into being as an airplane that would drop nuclear bombs
on the Soviet Union. The program was very controversial at the time.
It was extremely expensive. Its stealth technology had serious
technical bugs. More to the point, a grand debate was raging in
defense circles at the time over whether, in an age of
intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range cruise missiles,
the United States needed any new bomber that would fly into the Soviet
Union's heavily defended airspace. The debate was not just between
hawks and doves; advocates and critics could be found among both.

In the latest war, B-2s—modified to carry conventional munitions—were
among the planes that dropped smart bombs on Iraq. But that was like
hopping in the Lincoln stretch limo to drop Grandma off at church. As
for the other stealth plane used in both Iraq wars—the F-117, which
was designed for non-nuclear missions—there is no indication that
Kerry ever opposed it.

The RNC doesn't mention it, but Kerry also supported amendments to
limit (but not kill) funding for President Reagan's fanciful (and
eventually much-altered) "Star Wars" missile-defense system. Kerry
sponsored amendments to ban tests of anti-satellite weapons, as long
as the Soviet Union also refrained from testing. In retrospect, trying
to limit the vulnerability of satellites was a very good idea since
many of our smart bombs are guided to their targets by signals from
satellites.

Kerry also voted for amendments to restrict the deployment of the MX
missile (Reagan changed its deployment plan several times, and Bush
finally stopped the program altogether) and to ban the production of
nerve-gas weapons.

At the same time, in 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an
arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an
amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In
1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense
budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to
programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an
amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996,
he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In
1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile.
(Interestingly, the F-18 and Trident II are among the weapons systems
that the RNC claims Kerry opposed.)

Are there votes in Kerry's 20-year record as a senator that might look
embarrassing in retrospect? Probably. But these are not the ones.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 12:50:37 GMT, FIREBASE@PARAMETER.C0N (Freedom
Warrior ) wrote:

>John Kerry's Defense Defense
>Setting his voting record straight.
>By Fred Kaplan
>Posted Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004, at 3:41 PM PT
>
>Against defense? Not Kerry
>

Stop, Please Stop, look at his voting record in Congress.


Ken