Powell on the National Guard

In article , (Al Dykes)
wrote:

In article ,
R. David Steele wrote:

| "I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed
|managed to
| wangle slots in the Army Reserve and National Guard units." -- Colin
|Powell, My
| American Journey, 1995
|
|Colin Powell quoted regarding the Guard after ODS:
|
|"Then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell stated
|shortly after the war that it "...could have not been fought without the
|Guard".
|
|http://www.calguard.ca.gov/250thmi/A...ory_usarng.htm
|
|Brooks
|
|
| Arthur Kramer
|
|
|
|
|Of course not. It was being fought on the cheap and there weren't enough
|regular troops to do the job and so the guard had to be called in.
It is still
|being fought on the cheap and we still don't have Iraq under control.

Thank Clinton for gutting the military in the '90s. He basically
cut the military in half.

In graph form, for those who can not read (ie grad students)
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/military/ms8.pdf
In table form
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/military/ms9.pdf

Army Navy Marines Af
1990 732,403 579,417 196,652 535,233
2000 482,170 373,193 173,321 355,654

1990 2,043,705
2000 1,384,338

this was a 46% reduction in force over 10 years. The famous
"peace dividend" which was taken out of Army and AF for the most
part.


And a bunch of the headcount was contracted out to KBR. I suspect
that the budget didn't go down in proportion to headcount. I know
that the budget did a steep uptick in Clinton's last year.

Remember that The Afgani war was fought with Clinton's military.
Even in the best of circumstances Rummy's changes couldn't
have kicked it by late 2001.

Frankly, the fighting done in Afghanistan was done largely by Afghan
troops, and remnants of the Bush I military.