Bush Calls Out Kerry on 1995 Senate Bill (cuts in intelligence spending)

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20040308/ap_on_el_pr/bush

Bush Calls Out Kerry on 1995 Senate Bill

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush is accusing John Kerry of having proposed big cuts in intelligence spending just two years after the first attack on the World Trade Center, part of a re-election effort to depict his Democratic rival as weak on national security and the war against terrorism.

Bush, who was traveling to Dallas for a fund-raiser Monday, planned to call attention to a 1995 bill that Kerry sponsored to trim intelligence spending by $1.5 billion over five years. The cut was part of what Kerry called a "budget-buster bill" to strip $90 billion from the budget and end 40 programs that he said were "pointless, wasteful, antiquated or just plain silly."

Kerry's proposal, which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and calls for a peace dividend after decades of spending to thwart the Cold War opponent, failed to attract any co-sponsors and did not come up for a vote. <snip>

On Sunday, Kerry accused Bush of "stonewalling" separate inquiries into the events leading up to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as into the intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was hiding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites). The Bush campaign contended the president has cooperated fully with investigators. <snip>

[meegbear]

1. If voting for cutting intellegence spending in 1995 is bad ...

then cutting off intelligence gathering and funding altogether on a known terrorist who made threats against the US in 2001 is ....

[papau]

2. Excellent Response - 95 cut vs. Bush's 2/1/01 stop on chasing bin Laden

I wonder if the media has the guts - or honesty - to put the two together when they report on Bush and his compliant about the 95 bill?

[blm]

6. Kerry wanted to take the money out of the hardware and put it into human

intelligence. The hardware was too easily abused in domestic spying and did little for antiterror work.

It was HUMAN intelligence that Kerry sought to make a priority.

His 1997 book on terrorism and its funding, The New War, can explain it to Bush if he needs some schooling.

[papau]

7. Man - Kerry wanted More Human Intel !- Bush Blowback - if media honest

But then again when was our "not right wing GOP controlled - they just act like it" media honest!

But a great find.

I had not read the book or even heard a review!

Thanks for the heads-up!

:-)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. If it didn't come up for a vote, then who cares what Kerry proposed in...

...1995? Did Kerry do anything to damage National Security? The answer is "no".

Now, let's take a look at what the NeoCons have done to damage National Security since the Coup of December 2000. First and foremost was their absolute refusal to implement any of the anti-terror recommendations made by the last legalyy elected president's administration. One has only to look at the results of 911 to see what they caused, purposely or otherwise.

Nothing else needs to be said when comparing Kerry to Junior.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[sandnsea]

5. And focus on human intelligence

Gee, wonder if we should have done that.

[flpoljunkie]

8. According to Slate's Fred Kaplan, this just ain't the case, Mr. Bush...

Today Dubya is peddling the same claim that Fred Kaplan debunks--first introduced by the feckless Ed Gillespie.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127

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.

And this was very revealing:

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 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.

[flpoljunkie]

9. Response from the Kerry campaign to this distortion...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40695-2004Mar8.html

Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said the senator's bill was about opposing "business as usual in our intelligence community" and that he has supported $200 billion in intelligence funding over the past seven years - a 50 percent increase since 1996.

"He voted against a proposed billion-dollar bloat in the intelligence budget because it was essentially a slush fund for defense contractors," Clanton said. "Unlike George Bush, John Kerry does not and will not support every special spending project supported by Halliburton and other defense contractors."

[GBD4]

10. hmm

the replies on this thread have made me feel better, but I still think we should worry about Bush making such comments - people these days only get the soundbites, not always the other side of the story, so we can't let Bush keep making these accusations

then again, it's Rove we're running against (yikes!)