Cheney - #1 Defense Cutter

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-15-2004
Cheney - #1 Defense Cutter
1
Sun, 08-15-2004 - 6:58pm
If Reagan "doesn't really cut defense, he becomes the No. 1 special pleader in town...The severity of the deficit is great enough that the president has to reach out and take a whack at everything to be credible...If you're going to rule out the other two , then you've got to hit defense."

- Dick Cheney quoted in the Washington Post, 12/16/84

"Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been charging that John Kerry would be a dangerous president because he opposed many key weapons that the military now relies on, himself presided over the biggest cutbacks in defense programs in modern history when he was secretary of defense under the first President Bush.



As Pentagon chief from 1989 to 1993 Cheney canceled or cut back many of the same weapons programs – bombers, fighter planes, battle tanks – that he says Kerry tried to deprive the armed forces of."

"Yet Cheney canceled the B-2 bomber program after 20 planes, even though the Air Force insisted it needed 132. He opposed upgrading the M1 Abrams tank, recommended killing the latest model of the F-14 fighter jet and opposed buying more F-15s."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040429/news_1n29cheney.html



iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Sun, 08-15-2004 - 7:23pm
Thanks for posting that. Cheney somehow gets a free ride from the press on the political stuff, probably because they feel like their "cheney story" is halliburton. This allows the VP to spout off on a bunch of stuff unquestioned.

I was interested to see what Cheney's job was at the time he said that first quote (if you're gonna rule out SS cuts and a tax increase, then you've got to cut defense...) He was serving as a congressman from Wyoming.