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Features > October 24, 2004

Bushs War Against the Military

By Ian Williams

George W. Bush so often invokes his nominal title of “commander in chief” at veterans’ rallies, on military bases and during presidential debates that he now appears like some latter-day caudillo. But his claims to be a commander of any kind in any serious way are a figment of his imagination.

Discounting that he sent American troops into Iraq on false pretenses, a real commander would fight for the welfare of his troops. But Bush has demonstrated a consistent unwillingness to do so, and as a result many high-ranking officers have endorsed Kerry, including retired Navy Adm. William Crowe and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. John Shalikashvili.

Bush has failed the military on almost every level. While Halliburton and Boeing went to the bank this year with about $10 billion each, undermanned U.S. forces went into Iraq without armored vests and driving unarmored vehicles. The fatal results were hidden from public view as the dead were secreted home and the Department of Defense (DOD) obscured and juggled the numbers of maimed and wounded.

Once back in the United States, veterans found no federal welcome mat laid out for them. By April this year, one in six veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had filed benefits claims with the Veterans Administration for service-related disabilities. These figures do not include those troops still serving and are twice the number the DOD Web site says suffered “Non-Mortal Wounds” in those conflicts. Today, one-third of those claims, almost 10,000, have yet to be processed. Further, Bush’s 2005 budget will cut 540 staff members of the Veterans Benefit Administration, which is the office that handles the claims. The outreach department that lets vets know of available services also was instructed in a 2002 memo by a deputy undersecretary in the Veterans Health Administration to run in silent mode to flush out people who had not made claims out of ignorance.

Even if the war wounded succeed in getting disability pay, in 2003 Bush threatened to veto a bill that allowed veterans to collect disability pay and pensions simultaneously.

In 2003, his administration also tried to cut combat pay from $225 to $150 a month and the family separation allowance from $250 to $100. And most callously of all, the frat brat who ducked a war that killed 48,000 American troops threatened to veto a proposal to double the $6,000 payment to relatives of soldiers killed in action.

That is typical of the way in which President Bush, who loves to dress up in uniform, treats those who actually wear one. As a June 30, 2003, Army Times editorial concluded: “President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap and getting cheaper by the day, judging by the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.”

In his ghostwritten 1999 biography A Charge to Keep, an indignant Bush wrote: “Nearly twelve thousand members of the armed forces are on food stamps. I support increased pay and better benefits and training for our citizen solders. A volunteer military has only two paths. It can lower its standards to fill its ranks. Or it can inspire the best and brightest to join and stay.” Despite four years to do something about it, more than 250,000 military families did not get Bush’s much-vaunted child tax credit because their breadwinner earned less than $26,000 a year. And in his 2005 budget, Bush proposes only that combat pay not count toward eligibility for food stamps—for which no less than 25,000 military families are eligible.

The U.S. Army pay scale is about half that of the British, which is why there is a major crisis in military recruitment. Senior officers talk about a “serious crisis” in recruitment for the regular forces. In addition, the Iraq war has put heavy demands on reservists and guard units. For the first time in 10 years, the guard failed to meet its recruitment target. In one Indiana unit, for instance, the reenlistment rate has dropped from 85 percent to 32 percent.

You would think that the Bush administration would be solicitous of the foot soldiers who carry out its imperial ambitions. But this administration is militaristic, not pro-military. Most of its members sedulously avoided combat and uniformed service of any kind in previous wars and most current enlisted personnel come from small town, blue-collar America, precisely the people whose voices are among the least heard. It is no surprise that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao’s proposals for cutting back legal entitlement to overtime pay this year included all those who had learned their skill in the military.

All of this penny-pinching may seem strange in light of Bush’s desperate attempts to associate himself with the military. But when he dons a flak jacket, the president is not looking to win over those GIs who have just had their term extended on stop-loss orders, but those TV-viewing voters who put the military on a pedestal as the guarantor of American virtues.

Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, now available from Nation Books.

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  • Reader Comments

    Let us add, that the Republicans have often used “cutting military spending” as a the equivalent of betrying the country; while their claim to shoring up our defense has been to throw money at the military indiscriminately, breeding corruption and inefficiency. While all sorts of other cuts are forcing American families into poverty. Prioriteis seem way off here. And what about family values?

    Posted by Marton on Oct 25, 2004 at 4:16 AM

    The bushes are much complicent to destabalizing any society with their self centered attitude. 
    An individual would get more truth from the vilest of serpents.  Much good can be done for people with money and power, however the bushes just know in their thoughts they are the only people that matter.  One of the bushes stated that if you keep the voter fat and stupid they’ll vote for you all the time.  Well it’s way passed time for us to stop being stupid.  Our very country and the world is at stake in this election.  Any vote not cast for Kerry-Edwards is a vote for bush and an upcoming global conflict.  bush goes in we’re going to Iran and Syria for war and yes there will be a draft. Save America-sweep out all the bushes in government.

    Posted by Larry Henry on Oct 25, 2004 at 4:57 AM

    As a military widow, I despair that Bush’s presidential leadership will bring more grief to wives and mothers in America due to Bush’s misguided and horrific use of American military force.  With more than 1,104 dead (and counting)soldiers in Iraq, realizing the cost in human lives for a foolish and unnecessary war, (as well as possibly 16,000 innocent Iraqi’s killed, men, women, and children), it is unconscionable to believe that George W. Bush deserves to stay in the Oval Office to wreak more havoc on the world.

    Nearly three thousand died on 9/11, but the Bush administration’s criminal actions have far exceeded the number of people killed by terrorists.  My humble opinion:  the Bush administration is TERRORIZING America and the world.  No wonder the people of the Middle East hate us!

    Posted by Arlene Rosso-Baron on Oct 25, 2004 at 8:35 AM

    Follow the money...we all know who President Bush wants to please…

    Thanks to Arlene Rosso-Baron, who also remembers the Iraqi citizen count.  So much for greeting us with flowers...other than “pushing up daisies”. 

    This is not the world I wanted for my son.  I fervently pray, regardless of who becomes president, that wisdom, not strength, play the biggest role in the next 4 years.

    Posted by Rose Walker on Oct 25, 2004 at 9:15 AM

    Let’s also not forget the Bush administration having had our troops forgo mandatory pre-deployment physical and psychological exams before leaving for Iraq. Clinton had these mandated in ‘98 so as to avoid what happened to the first Gulf War vets: being denied disability benefits because there was no medical record of the afflicted soldiers not having had their affliction before going overseas. Heinous and unconscionable, this.

    But until toe-the-liners with their head in the sand wake the hell up and make themselves aware of relevant information like this instead of obsessing about reality TV and shopping, our troops will be getting more of the same.

    Posted by Kevin Collins on Oct 25, 2004 at 9:33 AM

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