from the Heritage Foundation, posted on FOX News website
U.S. Military Will Need Post-Iraq Rebuilding
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
By James Jay Carafano
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145297,00.html<snip>
After Iraq, it’ll be 1973 all over again. There’ll be pressure to balance the budget on the back of defense cuts. Pentagon proposals for trimming spending are already floating around Washington like inauguration-parade confetti.
Putting away the checkbook before resetting the military for its next mission (Iran? Syria??) is a bad idea. The military has been stretched, and it shows. The National Guard alone has had to transfer more than 74,000 soldiers from one command to another just to fill the ranks deploying overseas. Since 9/11, the Army has transferred more than 35,000 pieces of equipment from non-deploying units to forces in Iraq, leaving the stay-behind commands lacking more than a third of their critical equipment.
Getting the military back in shape will cost big time. Until the drawdown in Iraq begins, Congress must provide timely supplemental funding. After Iraq, robust annual defense budgets should be axiomatic. Keeping spending at about 4 percent of GDP (only half Cold War spending levels, but about 25 percent higher than the Clinton years) isn’t a bad goal.
If Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld decides he needs to cut bases or programs because they don’t fit the military’s future requirements, great. Any cuts or money saved from inefficiencies should be reinvested in the military. The Pentagon should use these funds to build the military America needs: an all-volunteer force of active and reserve soldiers -- one that provides adequate compensation, support and opportunity for all its troops, the right equipment, professional first-class leadership and training, and organizations designed to meet today’s challenges.
That’s the best way to truly exorcise the ghost of Vietnam.James Jay Carafano is a senior research fellow for defense and homeland security at The Heritage Foundation.
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