On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Congress and the Pentagon to keep their eyes on the ball, namely the war we are fighting now, instead of the war we might face later, maybe.
It sounded rational and, perhaps, even seemed a sound reminder that the nation can’t spend everything it might want to spend on the military.
Gates’ message was heard loud and clear on the Hill. Today, the top defense appropriator — read money man — in the House of Representatives boldly stepped in front of the nation (also known as the floor of the House) and said Gates’ speech was “simply a rationalization of short-term budget decisions made in the waning months of this Administration. Now when Rep. John Murtha, (D-Penn.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says something like this, you can bet he has a larger point to deliver. And he did. Murtha said the administration is effectively waging a war without a strategy to guide it.
“We need a National Security Strategy to identify both the near-term and long-term threats to this country. We need a vigorous debate to achieve this strategy — this hasn’t happened since the Cold War,” Murtha said. Then he sent a zinger that must have sent some shock waves through intelligence community budgeters: “This country spends more money on intelligence than all the nations of the world combined, and as I’ve observed our intelligence is about as accurate as Punxsutawney Phil — 50 percent. 50 percent is unacceptable.” Perhaps Murtha has his eyes set on at least one major cut to an IC program.
But in the longer term, Murtha said, “It is time to look beyond Iraq and focus on future threats.” To that end, he claimed the emergency supplemental spending bill being introduced on the House floor “provides our military with equipment that will prepare them to face future threats under any scenario; not only to fight a war, but to prevent a war.” Then he listed some of the bigger ticket items in the supplemental, including:
$3.6 billion to procure 15 C-17 aircraft
$2.5 billion to procure 34 C-130 aircraft
$750 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment
$1.5 billion for Humvees
$3 billion for Medium and Heavy Tactical Trucks
$500 million for Army and Marine Corps Facility Maintenance and Repairs (including the barracks that need repairs)
$300 million for facility maintenance and repairs at military medical facilities
$570 million for treatment and research activities within the Defense Health Program.
Well, what do you know, a democrat I agree with. Miracles do happen.
I agree with Murtha?
Well, even Satan himself has to enjoy the occasional frosty beverage, so there ya go: even stopped clocks being right twice a day, and all.
If only this wasn’t election year grandstanding. Remember, he is/was in a position to say / do something before this, in his position on the committee. Talk is cheap…
I’ve find some of Murtha’s past actions reprehensible, but I have to agree with him on this one.
Contrary to what some claim, Gates is the “best SecDef” we’ve ever had. He is merely a competent manager and lackss long term strategic vision and the imagination necessary to overhaul the DoD.
this proves that gates is right for sure. if that bag of garbage traitorous garbage murtha is against it, it must be right. besides we all know murtha loves his campaign dollars from defense companies in his district.
Not to get too technical, but Jack Murtha is a twit. Not just your run-of-the-mill twit but a studied, strategic, and exasperating twit. Twit!
Monkeys. Typewriters. Time. Novel. (Same thing with Jack.)
Jesus wept. Why is it that this guy causes me to lift a safety every time I see his jowls quivering on the tube? Better yet, how the hell does he keep getting sent back to the Hill. (Nevermind… I know.)
So today he’s kvelling about the size of the intel budget and its apparent inability to find the rear housing support group with both hands? Well, just who in the hell cut the guts out of it in the first place? Could it be the Jack and the rest of the group-hug pansies of a particular political stripe?
Jack Murtha just doesn’t get it. The other 50% he’s whining about in the intel biz is a messy, bloody, stomach-turning business that most folks are better off not knowing too much about. The same folks who wolf down their Jimmy Dean but would puke for a year if they really knew how it was made.
Time was that the CIA had its black fingers in EVERYONES’ pie, ready to stir when needed. It cavorted with the worst, propped up the evil, fomented unrest when nations pissed us off, conducted splendid little wars, and generally went about as the ministry of murder and bloody mayhem.
In other words, it did its damned job. And thank God.
People in this country went about their white bread lives without having to worry about piss ants like Osama bin Laden or Hugo Chavez. The masters of the black arts ensured that they were murdered, exiled, imprisoned, or turned to will for the explicit purpose of ensuring that they didn’t fly planes into our buildings or threaten to choke off the oil.
Jack wants sausage but he doesn’t want the mess that comes with making it. Jack Murtha ain’t no Jimmy Dean.
Cheers,
Chief B.
.…..Murtha…murtha!!!.…whats that wine and cheese eatin liberal doin still in congress! kennedy, murtha, and that weird old guy whats his name time to leave.…
Actually, Murtha’s list is a very good one *if the intent is to “RESET” and revitalize the American military in a post-Iraqi withdrawal world.*
The USAF is flying the wings off its airlift fleet and those were the first two items on the list.
Replacing lost reserve unit equipment and revitalizing the ground forces wheeled transport fleet list is next.
After that is housing and medical care for returning troops.
You can argue the wisdom of the policy, but that budget is right for the policy choice the Democrats want to make in 2008.
I do not trust “Haditha” Murtha. I pray that the lawsuit filed against him RUINS him.
I want to know when a marine will expend the brass and retire this idiot.
His list of expendatures is interesting, but I suspect he is up for election, or some other equally narcissistic — “save my own a$$ — reason.
I would say more, but just thinking of him enrages me.
I am no fan of this man, but he did say something right this time. 4% of GDP is just not enough for the defense budget, not enough to prepare the military for multiple threats ranging from anti-insurgency to modern warfare. You could tell that by the frustrations of Gates not having enough for counter insurgency and frustrtations of the Air Force not having enough for modern warfare. However, what is really not enough is that there is just not enough defense spending to defend America’s interest from the threats that may risk lives of Americans.
Chief:
I appreciate the use of Yiddish in your post, but I must point out that “kvell/kvelling” is the opposite of “kvetch/kvetching”.
I kvetch when I’m stuck in line at the DMV, but I’ll kvell if I hear that my little nephew just hit a home run in the pee-wee ball game.
So in this context, I think you probably mean “kvetch”.
Carry on!
Re: Joshik
Dank. My poor Yiddish is my own fault; I never should have learned it from a Jew from Mississippi. Seriously.
Re: Apologia
Fellas, don’t make any excuses for Jack Murtha “getting it right.” There is nothing new under the sun with this guileful windbag. Guaranteed that if there’s bacon for the 12th district of PA, a few Benjamins for his pocket, a party whore to be patronized, or a political enemy to be thrown under the bus, our man Jack will stick it in our backs.
Cheers,
Chief B.
If all of this is an issue over money,well,our government always seems to find the money to pay for their pet pork projects.If any of you are still waiting for your income tax checks &/or (whether you agree with it or not) tax rebate checks,well.…the IRS has “accidently” sent an undetermined number(but YOU know if it involves you) of these checks to the wrong bank accounts.But don’t worry,after they “recover the (by now already spent) money,in full I’m sure,from the wrong accounts &send it out to the right ones(someday)…but this takes time(years?decades?in our lifetime?).
I say this,because when it comes to YOUR money,they totally drag ass,but when it comes to THEIR pet projects,they can piss & shit out money left & right.
So those weapon systems that you are wondering why they don’t support more,well if it was on THEIR agaenda,they’d find the money(perhaps from mis-sent IRS checks,hmmmm?).
John Murtha, lolz, even over here in the UK people know that hes a complete and utter joke!
I served in Haditha,Iraq from Sept05-April 06 and John Murtha is a traitor. He smeared fellow Marines over an incident before any investgation was done.I also went to his office with several members of Vets for Freedom to ask for an apology for his remarks and he refused to give us 30 seconds of his time. But his assistant told us over and over again how he always supported the troops!Give me a break ! Lawrence Romack
Not to turn this blog into a recap of Haditha, but it was that incident that revealed that Murtha’s true colors are no longer Scarlet and Gold, or perhaps even Red, White, and Blue.
If he does not like defense spending, then the person he should be complaining to is in the mirror.
Again, it is time for someone to “retire” him.
Now I am getting angry again …
As for Haditha, Wuterich is getting a raw deal.
But I blame Army Generals Bargewell and Chiarelli, not Murtha. And Bush caved in to his buddy Maliki on Haditha. And as much as I hate to admit it, General Mattis too.
As for the budget — we need to look ahead. If you think that Iraq is the last war we will ever fight, then you need to get sober and stop smoking crystal meth. Murtha may not be the brightest bulb in congress, but he is on the right track with this one.
Murtha is the guiding force in the defense authorization bill trying to give us a 3.9% pay raise. It is not enough I know, but it is a hell of a lot better than Bush who considers a military pay raise a waste of money.
That makes Murtha ok in my book.
And I don’t believe Wuterich is getting a raw deal at all. He gives all of us a bad name. Hang the pr!ck I say. Mattis was right to not dismiss the case.
Throughout history armies have been plagued with the syndrome of wanting to fight the last war. Just look at World War I for a fairly recent example. The counterinsurgency/guerrilla style warfare which seems to be here to stay for the foreseeable future is probably the the most fundamental change to warfare since WWI. It seems like military leadership and the politicians are still planning for more conventional wars even though everything seen since about ’93 says otherwise. While conventional war is something we have to be prepared for I don’t see the use( right now) for stealth ships, new stealth aircraft, etc etc.
The general problem is that most of the people who decide how money is spent have little or no current operational experience and it seems are blinded by tech gadgets
Gadgets and gizmos have their place no doubt but it seems like a lot of money spent could be better spent with more immediate results. For instance, building shoot houses, buying range time for grunts, funding large scale military exercises, searching for a 5.56 round with increased stopping power, funding in depth language and cultural training for all on the ground, developing a Humvee replacement( too big, too slow, too little room for the size). My suggestions are from an Army grunt standpoint and I won’t comment on the other aspects save to say that dominance in the air and on the water are pretty meaningless without dominance of the ground.
“I served in Haditha,Iraq from Sept05-April 06 and John Murtha is a traitor. He smeared fellow Marines over an incident before any investgation was done.I also went to his office with several members of Vets for Freedom to ask for an apology for his remarks and he refused to give us 30 seconds of his time.“
You sir have my greatest repect, not only for serving in Iraq but for your restraint, i don’t know how you managed to hold yourself back from physicaly pounding the crap out of a traitor like Murtha or for that matter his equally dishonest assistant.
“Murtha is the guiding force in the defense authorization bill trying to give us a 3.9% pay raise. It is not enough I know, but it is a hell of a lot better than Bush who considers a military pay raise a waste of money.“
So in short, he’s a traitor who tryed his damned best to cause problems for you and your collegues by talking sht about the events in Haditha, his lies stirred up a massive amount of hatred for your fellow service men, undoubtable leading to more deaths of your fellow warriors and yet because he wants to give you a rise you think hes a ‘good guy’??? Strikes me as most odd if not twisted…
If Murtha wants to cut Intel spending he should start with that waste of a program, National Counternarcotics intel center in his homestate of PENN!!!
Re: Scott
Hey, man, it ain’t just in PA, its in Johnstown the District’s home and the largest city in the 12th district.
Pork, pork, pork.…
For guys who post regarding Gates as not getting it, my question is how do you get to that conclusion? Gates most definitely GETS it.
Next waritis could also be termed as the wish for gold plated weapons and the constant reliance on a technological fix. I’m a fan of military tech as much as the next guy. I suscribe to several defense publications whose sole function is to inform of the latest defense technologies, so I WANT the US to have the latest and greatest.
That being said, our enemies are seeking an asymetric advantage, so contrary to those who fear that the air superiority advantage will wither away, the truth is our enemies AREN’T getting massive air armies, they’re buying SAM’s like the S-400. What works for that, EW.
Are they building aircraft carriers, no they’re building ship killers like the Sunburn.
Are they buying new tanks, no they’re buying RPG-29’s and most importantly they are avoiding open terrain and trying to mix it up in urban areas.
All of the asymetric counters that our enemies are choosing is to steal our technological advantage not necessarily with an opposite, but a weapon that can threaten our advantage.
Some will argue that I’ve made my own counter-argument as to why Gates is wrong. I say that most of these fixes are procedural and depending on our tactics and strategies.
Did MRAP’s defeat the IED’s or the insurgency, no, our troops are IN the process of doing so. How, tactics and strategy.
Gates’ admonition to get our heads in the game with the current war is the plea for our defense leaders to focus on the current battle, not because of his “short-sightedness” but the opposite. We and the DOD have still not mastered counterinsurgencies.
And say what you will about China, you can add all the techno gadgets that the Chinese are working on (and I don’t doubt that they are), but the key thing also will be their tactics.
Guys let’s not focus on the equipment all the time, strength of heart, morale, will, and a superior battleplan can trump tech: this is what I think Gates wants us to focus on.