Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: GOP add-ons hit target

Tuesday, May 4, 1999 | 9:13 a.m.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER, R-Calif., showed his highly partisan attitude again last week when writing an editorial opinion in USA Today. Hunter, upset over several shortages the military is experiencing, attacked everything he viewed wrong by blaming it on the "Clinton-Gore team." The Republicans are worried about facing Gore in the elections next year so everything negative includes the name of the vice president. Their efforts to run President Clinton out of the White House didn't work so now they attack Gore and add him to their list of targets to keep him from occupying that big house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Hunter's first paragraph was enough to turn me off, but because of his past record of helping the military I continued to read. He did show his political skill by dodging the practice of Congress keeping expensive and unnecessary military bases open when the dollars are needed for the upkeep of a healthy military. Nobody has expressed concern over this practice more eloquently than Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The congressman from San Diego could take a few lessons from the gentleman who makes his home in Phoenix.

Some of the substance of Hunter's comment was right on target but nothing new. Our military forces haven't been kept up to the level where they can fight two regional wars at one time. Now we must question if we can handle one regional conflict. Several times during the past eight years this column has expressed concern about our military forces being shorted by the White House and Congress.

The big flap in Washington today is President Clinton's request for a $6.05 billion Kosovo emergency spending bill made up of $5.5 billion for the military and $556,000 to help refugees. The Republicans want to double this to at least $13 billion, which would include more pay and military construction. Other add-ons also include $1.3 billion for spare parts, $927 million for maintenance, $300 million for training, $156 million for personnel recruitment and $351 million for military base operations. Despite negative editorial comments in several major newspapers, all of these add-ons appear reasonable to me.

It was more than a year ago that Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., told his colleagues: "The widespread belief of trainers interviewed in the NTC, which is Naval Training Center, 29 Palms and U.S. Air Force Air Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, is that units are arriving less prepared than they used to be and not as proficient when they complete their training as in the past. Deployed units number of overdue training events, which drives increased workloads in order to catch up, is forcing our men and women out of the service.

"The report states that service secretaries have confirmed that while readiness has traditionally fluctuated, meaning it is a moving target, depending on where the unit was, either deployed or at home, from all the services was at troughs of lower readiness are deeper and longer in duration. Many pilots and maintenance personnel interviewed report that aircraft are increasingly being stripped of parts as soon as they return from deployment in order to support other aircraft that are deploying."

Fewer than three months ago, the Reno daily newspaper reported: "Seventeen of the 41 airplanes assigned to the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center in Fallon can't be flown because of a spare-parts shortage, the Reno Gazette-Journal has learned.

"And six of the Nevada Army National Guard's 58 MIA1 Abrams tanks are sidelined, inoperable because of a budget shortfall that's meant cannibalizing the six to keep others running.

"Navy and National Guard officials told the Gazette-Journal the local situation isn't unusual, but rather one that's shared by U.S. military units throughout the world."

So the people at both ends of Nevada should be aware of the problems facing our armed forces. Now's the time to set aside Hunter's political sniping and do something to correct these problems. What President Clinton and dedicated members of Congress, like Sen. McCain, must watch for and prevent is the use of these extra dollars for some more pork and hometown projects that have decorated all past military budgets. Also, removal of some past pork and the closure of unnecessary bases should accompany these budget increases.