The independent commission is charged by Congress to recommend changes in law and policy concerning the Guard and Reserves.
The commission's 400-page report concludes that the nation "does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available" to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident, "an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk."
Let's face it folks, no one could have ever imagined that terrorists might want to attack America, and even then, who could imagine that they'd use biological, chemical or nuclear weapons if they could? I mean, come on, it's not Bush's fault. It's not the Republicans' fault. This whole terrorism thing is new, it's not like we've had six years to get ready. And in any case, as I understand it, we're in Iraq to make sure that Osama, who isn't in Iraq and never was, doesn't nuke us in New York. Maybe it's time someone asked General Petraeus if losing New York City to a nuke is a price worth paying for our glorious victory in Iraq.
Oh, and it's not all George Bush's fault. After all, Dick Cheney decimated our military in the early 1990s. Seriously. You never hear the Democrats talk about it. That's because they're blithering idiots who would rather let the Republicans constantly talk about how it was really Bill Clinton who destroyed our military when in fact it was Dick Cheney. But hey, why would a Democrat want to stop the Republicans from feeding the blood libel that we're soft on defense and hate our troops? I mean, if they actually fought back and defended themselves, well then they wouldn't be Democrats would they? Anyway, it's true. And I quote, from Dick Cheney's official Pentagon bio on the Pentagon Web site:
In subsequent years under Cheney the budgets proposed and the final outcomes followed patterns similar to the FY 1990 budget experience. Early in 1991 the secretary unveiled a plan to reduce military strength by the mid-1990s to 1.6 million, compared to 2.2 million when he entered office....
Over Cheney's four years as secretary of defense, encompassing budgets for fiscal years 1990-93, DoD's total obligational authority in current dollars declined from $291.3 billion to $269.9 billion. Except for FY 1991, when the TOA budget increased by 1.7 percent, the Cheney budgets showed negative real growth: -2.9 percent in 1990, -9.8 percent in 1992, and -8.1 percent in 1993. During this same period total military personnel declined by 19.4 percent, from 2.202 million in FY 1989 to 1.776 million in FY 1993. The Army took the largest cut, from 770,000 to 572,000-25.8 percent of its strength. The Air Force declined by 22.3 percent, the Navy by 14 percent, and the Marines by 9.7 percent.
