• by IPS Correspondents (washington)
• Friday, December 02, 1994
• Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dic 02 (IPS) - U.S. President Bill Clinton Thursday made a key concession to the Pentagon and Republican critics, announcing that he wants to increase spending on the Pentagon by 25 billion dollars over the next several years.

He will ask the new Republican-dominated Congress to quickly approve two billion dollars in additional spending early next year to help compensate the Pentagon for the unanticipated costs this year of rushing men and equipment to Kuwait, of occupying Haiti, and providing safe haven for refugees from Haiti and Cuba.

The moves, if approved, will restore about 20 percent of the 127 billion dollars Clinton cut from a five-year, 1.4-trillion- dollar Pentagon budget plan prepared by his predecessor, Republican President George Bush.

The announcement follows a report earlier this month that three of the Army's 12 divisions were below peak readiness, in part because the costs of operations in Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda had been taken out of training funds.

The report was especially embarrassing for the administration which had just a few days before strongly rejected criticism from Republican Senate candidates, including Minority Leader Robert Dole, that budget cuts had created a "hollow force".

Republican attacks have increased since the Nov. 8 mid-term elections in which Democrats lost a majority of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

Ultra-rightwing Senator Jesse Helms, who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested recently that Clinton was not fit to serve as Commander-in-Chief and did not enjoy the confidence of the military brass.

It was precisely the military brass of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who flanked Clinton during his announcement at the White House Thursday.

"I have pledged that throughout this administration, our military will remain the best-trained, the best-equipped, the best- prepared fighting force on Earth," he said.

"We regard this as being very, very good news for defence," said John Deutch, the number two man at the Pentagon, who briefed journalists at the White House after Clinton's appearance.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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