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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCheney Sec Of Defense '88-'92 Cut Army Troop Levels By Whopping 25% & Cut Military Budget Annually
Juan Cole
Dick Cheney Broke US Military, Now Blames Obama for Cuts
Posted on Feb 27, 2014
By Juan Cole
According to former Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill, Cheney is the one who insisted on two big tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the first years of the Bush administration, which has been a structural contributor to persistent budget deficits. America has become an extremely unequal society, with the top 1% taking home 20% of the national income every month, and obviously if they pay dramatically less in Federal taxes, it causes a shortfall that cannot be made up from the 99%. Those deficits provoked the sequester, automatic across the board cuts in the government budget, which are among the impetuses for Hagels budget.
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Given that Cheney helped prosecute a naked act of aggression on false pretenses, he is a war criminal and ideally should be prosecuted and jailed rather than being given a megaphone in corporate media to continue to push for militarism.
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Not to mention that when Cheney was Secretary of Defense from 1988 to 1992, he cut the army troop levels by a whopping 25% and cut the military budget annually as much as Congress is doing this year:
Over Cheneys four years as secretary of defense, encompassing budgets for fiscal years 1990-93, DoDs 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 572,00025.8 percent of its strength.
http://history.defense.gov/cheney.shtml
Those cuts came because of the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. When wars wind up, Mr. Cheney, military budgets wind down, as you yourself demonstrated.
the rest:
http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/cheney-military-blames.html
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Cheney Sec Of Defense '88-'92 Cut Army Troop Levels By Whopping 25% & Cut Military Budget Annually (Original Post)
kpete
Feb 2014
OP
Rex
(65,616 posts)1. Dick Cheney is a plutocrats best friend and a lawyers worst enemy.
Well, drunk and with a loaded shotgun...better DUCK!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)2. Cheney....Too Big (Connected) to Fail---To Big (Powerful) to Jail
He could bring down the whole Military/Industrial Complex. We can't have that.
It's like our "Too Big to Fail/Too Big to Jail" Banks. As Eric Holder has reminded us when asked why Wall Street Banksters hadn't been prosecuted.
blm
(113,131 posts)3. Cheney also privatized military's logistics - that worked out great for USS Cole in 2000.
.
jsr
(7,712 posts)4. Talking out of both sides of his mouth, again.