Posted 28 June, 2004 12:00
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What if John Kerry Wins?
By WILLIAM MATTHEWS
If John Kerry becomes U.S. president, defense budgets will keep going up, he says - but how that money is spent is going to change.
Budgets have to keep rising "for a period, unavoidably," the Democratic presidential hopeful said in a June 24 interview with Defense News. The war in Iraq, the global war on terrorism, military transformation and the need to repair and replace weapons lost or simply worn down in Iraq make higher defense budgets inevitable, Kerry said.
But Kerry also said he is willing to delay missile defense plans and cut back other weapons programs to add two divisions to the 10-division Army.
President George W. Bush has made deploying a missile interceptor system a top military priority and plans to spend $9.2 billion on it in 2005 alone. Kerry says that's spending too much too soon.
"I'm not for the rapid deployment of missile defense," the Massachusetts senator said. "I'm for research and development and continuing the testing. But I don't think we're ready for deployment. I think that's a pool of money that's going to be wasted."
Cuts to the missile defense program could yield "several billion" dollars to be spent on other defense needs, he said.
Kerry declined to specify what other programs might also be cut, saying he would order a threat analysis to indicate which systems now in development are no longer top priorities, he said.
"What I'm committed to is transformation of the military for the 21st century," he said, a force that is able to fight terrorism and also able to handle more traditional threats. "I think having a more mobile, more special-operations-oriented, more flexible, rapidly deployable military is very important to us."
Kerry said there is a general need to modernize weapons, develop newer systems for urban warfare and repair or replace older weapons and equipment worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Those would be budget priorities.
Adding Troops
At least as pressing is the need to add troops to the overburdened U.S. Army.
Of the two divisions Kerry proposes to add - about 40,000 troops - one would be a standard combat division and the other would be a "support division" designed for post-conflict operations. It would include "civil affairs, psychological operations, military police, engineering, all those kinds of components that are part of winning the postwar effort.
"I think we need greater training in that," Kerry said. "Winning a war is not just winning the active war, it's winning the immediate occupation afterwards, which this administration was completely unprepared and ill-equipped to do."
As his red-white-and-blue campaign plane flew south along the California coast, Kerry ticked off what he called the failures and arrogance of the Bush administration. And he confidently spelled out how he would deal with key defense matters, from transformation of U.S. forces to improving relations with U.S. allies.
Kerry disparaged the Bush administration for its failures in the war in Iraq and its failure to hold anyone accountable for them.
"I think there's a serious question as to why [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and any of them are still around," he said. "When you miscalculate in war as badly as they have miscalculated, when you don't have equipment that you're supposed to have, when you short the number of troops you should have, when you don't even calculate the postwar process accurately, when you willfully refuse to look at plans drawn up by others in order to do this right, it's beyond negligence. When you pass off looting as a minor happening, it's beyond me.
"The lack of accountability up and down the line sends a message throughout the military that is counter to everything you've learned in the military," he said.
Kerry argued that he is better qualified to manage the diplomatic and war fighting duties of the commander-in-chief.
"I have 20 years experience on the [Senate] Foreign Relations Committee; I have active war fighting experience; I went to chemical, biological warfare school; I have served on the Arms Control Observer group of the Senate; I've been chairman of the Narcotics Terrorism Committee; I've visited bases and troops and countries abroad that are challenges to our nation; and I think I am ready to be commander-in-chief in this new world."
Kerry said he has "a greater level of preparation and a better vision of how we'd make ourselves safe than George Bush has - even now."
From the outset of his presidency, Kerry said he would work to repair relations with U.S. allies. In the Middle East, he said he would strive to get Arab countries more involved in their own policing.
"I believe you have got to turn to the Arab countries and say to them, 'Look, you have a choice, you can have a failed state as your neighbor and maybe a civil war next door, or you get involved.' I think this administration does not have the ability to do that because this administration [disrespected] them so badly going in. I think you need a new president in order to have a new policy in Iraq."
Kerry said he has influence with Middle Eastern leaders.
"I know Hosni Mubarak, I know King Abdullah [of Jordan], I know [Saudi] Crown Prince Abdullah. I have dealt with these people for 15 years or more - not in the case of King Abdullah because he hasn't been there that long, but I know him. He has been in my home. I have worked with him on economic development in Jordan. I have a relationship."
Kerry called for a broad dialogue on the Korean peninsula: "a bilateral negotiation in North Korea where we put the entire force deployment issue on the table along with the nuclear issue and the economic issue and human rights issues, and you really try to come to resolution on the armistice."
And in Europe, he said the United States must work to build up the nascent European defense capability. "It's a good thing for Europe to have a more developed force, and I think we need to work with them to develop it."
E-mail: bmatthews@defensenews.com.