SOUND BITES
“There is not going to be any reduction in the National Guard.”
- Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey, news briefing, Jan. 18, 2006
CUT AND RUN
“We are now very close to that point of general agreement in the Iraq war. Do you believe that if Bush, Cheney and company could turn back the clock, they would do this again? And now, thanks to Rep. John Murtha, it is permissible to I say, or at least to ask, ‘Why not just get out now? Or at least soon, on a fixed schedule?’”
-Michael Kinsley, “The Phony War Against the Critics,” The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2005
SENATE WATCHING GUARD CHANGES
“Reducing National Guard numbers during a time of war requires serious debate, and I believe the Department of Defense should work closely with Congress as it considers changes to our nation’s armed forces.”
-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., press statement, Jan. 30, 2006
DAMNING PRELIMINARY DRAFT
“The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft.”
-James Glanz, “Iraq Rebuilding Badly Hobbled, U.S. Report Finds,” The New York Times, Jan. 24, 2006
IN TOUCH WITH THE TROOPS?
“I’m not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken. When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it’s Vietnam.”
-Joel Stein, “Warriors and Wusses,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 24, 2006
MISSILE DEFENSE ALTERATIONS
“It is not unthinkable that new threats might overtake missile defense by the time it is ready for deployment. In the meantime, it has altered nuclear strategies and the role of nuclear weapons from deterrence to war fighting.”
-Manpreet Sethi, “New Face of Security,” DefenseNews, Jan. 16, 2006
FROM COMBAT TO SUPPORT
“Convening Guard combat brigades-which have between 3,500 and 4,000 soldiers-to support units, which tend to be smaller, would probably mean some states will see a reduction in their overall number of soldiers.”
-Tom Bowman, “Army Secretary Defends Plan to Restructure National Guard,” The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 27, 2006
FLU RESPONDERS
Hugh Hewitt: Is the Department of Defense prepared for the bird flu if it in fact becomes transmissible human-to-human?
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld: You never know how widespread it would be and how rapidly it would hit … We ended up within a matter of days and weeks with something like 22,000 active forces and 50,000 Guard and Reserve forces in Louisiana and Mississippi. … There isn’t another institution that can put that much assistance on a particular problem in that short a time.
-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, radio interview, Jan. 25, 2006
WON’T RELY ON THE GUARD AS MUCH
“You’re going to see the number of Guardsmen and Reserves are going down dramatically in theater. The Guard bought the active Army the time to do this reorganization that I talked about, this restructuring. Now that is very much down the line, very great progress we’ve made. So we’re not going to rely on the Guard and Reserve as much.”
-Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, radio interview, Jan. 26, 2006.
UNPREPARED AND UNACCEPTABLE
“The searing pictures of those who were left behind in New Orleans-at the Super Dome, the Convention Center, on the I-10 overpass, and in flooded medical facilities-are images that remain with us. Emergency planning that does not make provisions for society’s most vulnerable-the aged, the sick, the poor-is not just operationally unacceptable. It is morally unacceptable.”