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Yesterday, a majority of the Senate voted to approve Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) amendment to the Defense Authorization act that would have required “that troops get as much time at home as they spend overseas before being redeployed.” Yet, the measure, which was backed by the Military Officers Association of America, was blocked by a Republican filibuster.
This isn’t the first time Congressional Republicans and the White House have undermined the safety and security of American troops and their families despite their deceptively pro-troop rhetoric:
TROOPS SENT TO WAR WITHOUT PROPER BODY ARMOR AND EQUIPMENT:
- In March, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace admitted that the army was “$56 billion short of being fully equipped back in fiscal 2001, before the war [in Iraq] began.” Since then, the army “has struggled to keep up with demands for new armor to protect against increasingly deadly bombs.” [Washington Post, 2/17/07]
-As recently as February, “U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit…designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs…that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties” in Iraq. [Washington Post, 2/17/07]
- A report by the Defense Dept. Inspector General’s office “found that the Pentagon hasn’t been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has.” Soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan “without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies…Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment.” [Business Week, 1/30/07]
BUSH THREATENED TO VETO MILITARY PAY RAISES:
- In May, the White House threatened to veto “a comprehensive $646 billion defense spending bill” which passed the House “by an overwhelming vote of 397-27″ because it objected to “a recommended 3.5 percent military pay raise for 2008, with further increases in 2009 through 2012.” The White House described the pay raise as “unnecessary.” [ThinkProgress, 5/17/07]
- In August 2003, the Pentagon sought to deny the 157,000 troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan a promised pay increase of “$75 a month in ‘imminent danger pay’ and $150 a month in ‘family separation allowances.’” In response to opposition from military family members and the Army Times, “Congress ultimately approved of the pay increase and the Bush administration backpedaled in its opposition.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 8/17/03]
REPUBLICANS BLOCKED EFFORTS TO EXPAND HEALTH CARE COVERAGE:
- In the summer of 2005, the Bush Administration was forced to acknowledge a $2.7 billion shortfall in veterans health care funding because the Department of Veteran Affairs failed to budget for 77,000 new veterans entering the VA medical system. [Global Security, 6/30/05]
- Under Bush, the Veterans Affairs administration is “battling a crisis in mental health care.” Returning Iraqi veterans, one-fourth of whom display PSTD and other mental illness symptoms, “enter a VA system that chronically loses records and is sags with a backlog of 400,000 claims of all kinds.” According to a report commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “there is not a coordinated effort to provide the training required to identify and treat these non-visible injuries, nor adequate research in order to develop the required training and refine the treatment plans.” [WP, 6/17/07]
- Republicans have opposed efforts to expand TRICARE, the military health care plan. As the American Prospect has noted, Republicans have undercut efforts to allow soldiers coming back from war, who loose their TRICARE coverage after a short grace period, to buy into the system, despite the fact that “as many as one-fifth of the nation’s 1.2 million part-time soldiers lacked health insurance.” Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “called the Senate’s efforts to expand TRICARE a “troubling provision.” [American Prospect, 9/28/04]
BUSH UNDERFUNDED MILITARY SURVIVORS AND WIDOWS:
- Bush opposed “a $40 monthly allowance for military survivors, additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees, and price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE.” [ThinkProgress, 5/17/07]
- In 2006, citing a “steep price tag,” Congressional Republicans opposed reversing the so-called “widows tax,” which reduces the benefits widows receive “from their Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuities by one-third when they reach age 62.” [New York Times, 8/19/06]
Republicans’ stubborn insistence on fighting the Iraq war on the cheap has jeopardized American men and women serving overseas. The troops are using their own wallets to register their displeasure: “members of the U.S. military have dramatically increased their political contributions to Democrats, marching sharply away from the party they’ve long supported.”
This week, many prominent Republicans have called upon MoveOn.org to apologize for their ad about General Petraeus. After reviewing their embarassing record of undercutting the troops, Republicans should first consider apologizing to the troops themselves.