Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 15, 1994 TAG: 9412160013
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B6/INTL EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
\ Having deposed an outlaw government in Haiti and faced down a new Iraqi threat to Kuwait, the Pentagon turned its attention this week to domestic political wars.
With less than four weeks left before midterm congressional elections, Deputy Defense Secretary John M. Deutch met with reporters Thursday to challenge Republican claims that Clinton administration budget cuts have left America with a "hollow" military.
American forces "are ready, as ready as they've ever been," he asserted; they've demonstrated that, he said, by responding quickly and professionally to potentially deadly confrontations in the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf.
Despite what it considers stunning successes of late, the military establishment's ability to respond to multiple crises has been the target of a torrent of criticism. GOP candidates - Virginia U.S. Senate hopeful Oliver North most prominent among them - insist that President Clinton has so weakened the military that, in North's words, "despots like Saddam Hussein feel comfortable threatening this country."
None of the administration's military critics are talking about specific weapons systems or troop levels.
Instead, the debate generally focuses on whether the administration is spending enough - roughly $240 billion per year - to meet its stated goal of maintaining sufficient staffing and weaponry to fight two major regional wars simultaneously.
Deutch asserted that the answer is yes.
While conceding it's possible to envision a scenario under which Iraq and North Korea "on a particular day" could in concert launch attacks that would severely strain American forces, Deutch said "any reasonable interpretation suggests ... we are able to deal with two major regional contingencies."
Civilian and some uniformed leaders at the Pentagon have been surprised in recent days at the way questions about the military's readiness have arisen even as troops have been showing their mettle in Haiti and Kuwait.
In preparing to invade Haiti, Deutch reminded reporters, the Army and Navy combined in unprecedented fashion. Then, when a last-minute deal was struck to avoid violence, troops and their commanders smoothly shifted plans and occupied the country without losing a single soldier to hostile fire.
In the Middle East, meanwhile, the administration argues that its foresight and strength has permitted a faster and tougher response than President Bush could make when Saddam took over Kuwait in 1990.
Then, the Pentagon needed months to assemble and equip about 500,000 troops to liberate the emirate. In the current crisis, equipment left in Kuwait and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia after the Gulf War has been quickly moved into position and thousands of troops have been or are being flown to Kuwait to head off the Iraqis.
In all that, "there's been no indication of any hollowness" in American forces or their training, Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week.
Others aren't so sure. In an appearance this week on ABC-TV's "Nightline," recently retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar argued that "we are in serious trouble. We are underfunded and I'm not sure we have a good solution to that problem right now."
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who is a former Navy fighter pilot, said on the same program that "all you have to do is talk to any of our military leaders in the field and they'll tell you that our readiness is suffering, our training is suffering."
Other critics fault Clinton and Defense Secretary William Perry for their decision this year to slow the development of new weapons in favor of "quality of life" improvements for service members.
"They are ... mortgaging the nation's access to future military capability," Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Defense Budget Project, warned this week in an interview with USA Today.
Such concerns are "a legitimate issue," Deutch conceded. But he said that America is far enough ahead of the rest of the world in the development of precision-guided weapons and other high-tech innovations to permit a temporary slowdown in spending on modernization.
by CNB