The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election - RNC Chair Rips Kerry on National Security

January 29, 2004

Kerry | RNC Chair Rips Kerry on National Security

The long knives are coming out for John Kerry now. Here’s the key portion of RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie’s speech today, which previewed what is likely to be a significant line of attack from the GOP if Kerry holds his lead in the race for the Democratic nomination - attacking Kerry’s record of votes to cut spending on the military and on intelligence:

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Kerry shared the assessment of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. He voted for the use of force in Iraq, then later tried to say it was a vote to “threaten” the use of force, and then ultimately declared himself an “anti-war” candidate.
John Kerry’s record of service in our military is honorable. But his long record in the Senate is one of advocating policies that would weaken our national security.

In 1972, when John Kerry first campaigned for Congress, he made a commitment to vote against military appropriations. After he was elected, he went one step further, actively introducing legislation to reduce funding for defense and intelligence.

In addition to his opposition to defense funding, John Kerry opposed the policies that led to victory in the Cold War.

In 1984 he called for a freeze on testing, production and deployment of nuclear warheads, missiles, and other delivery systems.

In 1985, he introduced a Comprehensive Nuclear Freeze Bill, and sponsored two amendments to freeze SDI-related nuclear development.

In 1991, he acknowledged Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD, but voted against military action in the Gulf War.

In 1993, Sen. Kerry introduced a plan to:

cut the number of Navy submarines and their crews;
reduce the number of light infantry units in the Army down to one;
reduce Air Force tactical fighter wings;
terminate the Navy’s coastal mine-hunting ship program; and
force the retirement of no less than 60,000 members of the Armed Forces in one year.
In 1995, Sen. Kerry voted to freeze defense spending for 7 years, cutting over $34 billion from the defense budget.

His policy positions belie his assertion that his approach to national security will make us safer as a nation.

You know, after September 11, one high-ranking Al Qaeda official said the attacks were “the beginning of the end of America.” He didn’t say September 11 was the beginning of the end of Russia.

He didn’t say September 11 was the beginning of the end of France. He didn’t say September 11 was the beginning of the end of the United Nations. He said it was the beginning of the end of America.

He couldn’t have been more wrong, but it’s our prerogative to make sure he’s wrong-with or without the unanimous international consent demanded by the President’s critics.

One of these critics, Sen. John Kerry, twelve days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, said, “And the tragedy is, at the moment, the single most important weapon for the United States of America is intelligence. It’s the single most important weapon in this particular war …”

This is the same Sen. Kerry who in 1995, two years after the first World Trade Center bombing, voted to cut FBI funding by $80 million.

That same year, again, only two years after the first World Trade Center bombing, he unsuccessfully proposed legislation to slash $1.5 billion-over the next 5 years-from our intelligence budget.

That’s a $300 million cut in intelligence funding in 1995; the year before terrorists attacked the Khobar Towers.

That’s a $300 million cut in intelligence funding in 1997; the year before terrorists attacked U.S. embassies in East Africa.

That’s a $300 million cut in intelligence funding in 1999; the year before terrorists attacked the U.S.S. Cole.

Twelve days after September 11, after saying that America is weakest in the area of intelligence, he added, “So it’s going to take us time to be able to build up here to do this properly.”

Had Sen. Kerry’s drastic cuts in intelligence passed, it would be taking us a lot more time to do this properly.

Posted by Baseball Crank at January 29, 2004 07:51 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Game-Set-Match

Posted by: Paul at January 29, 2004 10:37 PM

Strategic Forecasting Inc.

The direction that all this is taking is that U.S. President George W. Bush and Blair did not lie when they said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they were misled by their own intelligence services. This is not what many people want to hear. Judging by the email we received on our Jan. 26 Geopolitical Diary, there is a deep-seated belief — scatological in some emails — that Bush and Blair simply lied to justify the war. The problem with that theory has always been this: Even assuming that Bush is an idiot — which some of our readers guarantee us is the case — Blair isn’t. Only an idiot would lie about WMD because, once the war was over and no WMD were found, the world would see the lie. So, even if Bush were a complete dunderhead, why would Blair launch a war knowing that he would be caught in a lie a few months later?

Before inundating us with emails calling us apologists for the Republican Party and Enron, please bear in mind that Bush and Blair can and should be held responsible for an even deeper failure. The Sept. 11 attacks caught the United States by surprise. It was a complete intelligence failure. Bush had ample warning that the intelligence agency he had inherited was seriously flawed — but not only did he not fire its leadership and shake up the entire intelligence community, he continued to rely uncritically on their intelligence. So did Blair. They both chose to rely on the same intelligence managers who failed to grapple with al Qaeda for their views of Iraq. The failure of Bush and Blair was their extraordinary negligence in not revamping their intelligence organizations after Sept. 11, and even more extraordinarily, continuing to rely on the same people and the same organizations when going to war with Iraq.

Posted by: scoooby at January 30, 2004 12:05 AM

Yes, we all know that only Bush has the integrity to lie to the nation, invade a country without justification, deliberately escalate the North Korean danger, alienate world support for the US, keep a traitor on his staff, and of course get hundreds of americans killed.

Posted by: Bush Lies at January 30, 2004 12:24 AM

Sure cuz Clinton never lied to the nation, never invaded a county without justification or U.N. support, he never gave North Korea (and China) Nuclear technology, or kept multiple traitors and felons on his staff.

Nope… Clinton never did any of that stuff…

Just exactly how long have you been delusional?

Posted by: Paul at January 30, 2004 05:18 AM

Bush lies and scoooooooby,

Wow. You guys need an intervention. Hope you have something in place for November.

Posted by: johnnymozart at January 30, 2004 10:36 AM

Paul,

Ah…your defense is “Since Clinton was careless so then Bush gets to be reckless?”

Man, you guys really just do not care for this country one bit…your theme is always “Bush good Clinton bad.” When Bush can’t defend the borders of this nation, at least he is a Republican with his heart in the right place?

9-11 happened on his watch because he is incompetent. The mess of the Iran-Iraq War is his project. If you guys really believed all your anti-Clinton rhetoric, then why is the President just amplifying Clinton’s failures?

Posted by: scoooby at January 30, 2004 01:38 PM

Was this today…if this speech was today how can RNC even think about talking to anyone about national security. We were just attacked for gods sake!

Being in never never land will only help Kerry further humiliate bush in the general….

Posted by: what2 at February 3, 2004 02:06 PM

PEOPLE
Senator John Kerry: A White House Hopeful in 2000?

Guys:Senator Kerry supports gay marriage-please do not be distressed.

Massachusetts Senator is Misquoted as Anti-Gay

Senator’s Communications Director Replies to Error

Compiled by Badpuppy’s GayToday
From Rex Wockner’s International Report

y
Massachusetts Democratic Senator, John Kerry, is once again—in 2000— considering a run for the White House. Kerry was elected to the Senate in 1984. Though his record on gay and lesbian rights is well known, Reuters news service misquoted Kerry on May 13, indicating that he would not support certain equal rights goals of the gay and lesbian movement
Al Elsner, Reuters’ political correspondent, mistakenly said of the Senator that his view of family values was not supportive of same-sex families. He wrote that Kerry showed “little patience for those who advocate teaching about non-traditional families or homosexual or lesbian marriages.”

Kerry was quoted: “They are not parents by definition. They are parents by law but they’re not parents by biology,”

Reuters also said that Kerry believes that “The battle in America right now is not over the non-traditional family. The battle in America right now is over whether or not we can even save the traditional family. And that we ought to be able to agree on…”

Following the Reuters misquotes, Jim Jones, Director of Communications to Senator Kerry, immediately fired off a letter to Rex Wockner, GayToday’s International News correspondent. He said:

“Alan Elsner, the reporter who filed a recent Reuters wire story about Senator Kerry, got many things wrong in his story, but possible none more inflammatory than the misquote regarding gay people being parents. John Kerry is the only Senator up for re-election in 1996 who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. For this, Time magazine gave him its “honest man in politics” award. His stance on gay civil rights in all its guises is unequivocal and his voting record underscores this: he supports non-discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the work place, opposes marriage restrictions on gay people, and supports gay people being foster parents.

I sat in on that interview from which the story was written. John Kerry never said that gay people cannot or should not be parents — the quotation in the story was taken wholly out of context. (Trust me, if he had intimated it, I would have clearly spoken up.) I even spoke to the reporter after the interview to make sure he understood the context of the Senator’s comments.

The Senator obviously understands that women — gay or straight – are able to bear children. He has personal friends who are gay parents. He draws no distinction — as the reporter would have you believe — between people who are parents “by law” and “by biology.”

The interview was supposed to focus on his legislation on early childhood development and the crisis of neglect of child in this country. It frankly amazed him when he read that somehow the reporter misconstrued it into a discussion of gay parenting or the “advocacy of non-traditional families” (whatever that means).

The Senator deeply regrets any misunderstanding which might arise from this erroneous story. He has not and will not change his position that gay people in this country deserve all the rights that are afforded to every American.

He hopes that all supporters of gay civil rights judge him by his votes and his deeds and not spurious comments attributed to him.

This type of sensationalism surrounding issues important to gay people is exactly what he is fighting against, and it strikes him as especially ironic that this report appears on the very day that he succeeded in convincing the Republicans on the Small Business Committee (on which he serves as Ranking Democrat) to hold a hearing on Fred Hochberg’s nomination. It looks as if Mr. Hochberg will sail through the process, making him one of the top openly gay officials in the Administration. I hope this helps to clarify this issue

Best regards.

Jim Jones, Senator Kerry’s Communications Director

Posted by: goodguys at February 24, 2004 03:08 PM

Stop the hate Bush comments and know that Sen. Kerry will put our nation at rish both economically and militarily.

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Posted by: jeanmarry at August 5, 2004 04:14 PM

FOR PEACE JOHN KERRY PRESIDENT

Mr. President Buch

Yes I am afraid
fear of the future for my children
fear for my little children
the world cries, THAT OF HATRED!
in Palestine it is chaos
in Iraq the every day of young soldiers dies for which cause?
believe that the people of IRAQ are happier?
The world is very small now, only the union of the people will be able to overcome international terrorism I have a deep attachment for your country, and your function , but each one of your errors to a world repercussion
the error and human, but it to continue and a fault.
Sadam Hussein, a dictator yes, but while lying on the reasons of war you have removed prestige with the greatest nation of the world one needs a man able to rebuild peace, and to give again a size with your nation,

JOHN KERRY is this man

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Posted by: jeanmarry at October 12, 2004 02:21 PM