Yet another report sheds light on the fact that the United States is not doing all that it needs to do to prepare our country against attack. The latest revelation is a review of the ability of our states to deal with a bioterrorism attack. That report shows that only a handful of states are believed to be able to adequately deal with such an attack. About two weeks ago the outgoing secretary of Health and Human Services indicated that we are not doing enough to protect our food supply from terrorist attacks. We have a continuing problem at the Food and Drug Administration.
We have the continuing story of the inadequacy of our military forces. Most four star general's now admit that the Army should be increased by 80,000 and the Marines by about 30,000. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld substitutes flip statements for an honest answer to the issues that our troops raised. We provide medals of freedom to a former CIA director under whose supervision we had 9/11 and the 100% error rate about WMD in Iraq. We have a border patrol of about 3,000 people to safeguard the thousands of miles of border and interior requirements to protect our nation. When the White House is questioned as to why we have not fully funded homeland defense, border patrol, bioterrorism and first defenders and brought our military to the strength necessary we are told how much more we have spent on these areas. This is a clear attempt to deflect the real issue which is not how much more have we spent but have we done the job adequately?
We have money to dump into the rat hole in Iraq, to fund pet projects for politicians, to purchase a new yacht for the President of the United States but we can't provide body armor for our troops, armored vehicles to help protect them or money to help first defenders and our border patrol. I'm especially disturbed by the lack of action on the part of President Bush with respect to the increased size of our military forces. President Bush identified the fact in the 2000 election that the Army was too small to fulfill the missions it had been given. In the first four years of his administration he did not request from Congress and increase in the end strength of the Army or the Marine Corps to correct the deficiency he himself identified four years ago. We can give tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans while at the same time have insufficient resources to done everything needed to protect this nation.
When Senator McCain criticizes the military strength in Iraq he fails to acknowledge that neither the President nor the Congress has done what they need to do to provide the forces he says we should have sent to Iraq. The truth is we don't have a military of sufficient size to have sent 300,000 to 400,000 troops to Iraq that the former Chief of Staff said was necessary. Those are the same troop levels that General Tommy Franks used when planning for this war. If you look at the planning General Franks did in his Operations plan 1003, you will see that his plan called for over 300,000 troops on the ground at the time we toppled Saddam Hussein. He was obviously overruled by the White House and the Pentagon because we were unwilling to provide the necessary military to do the job. As I may have said in another blog ,one can argue with the rationale for going to war in Iraq but there is certainly no arguing with the fact that we did not plan properly nor staff our military to establish and maintain order in Iraq. We are doing the very same thing with respect to our border security and the funding of the homeland defense requirements including our ability to deal with bioterrorism. It is remarkable to me how day after day the press present facts that show how this administration has not and is not meeting the most basic needs of this nation. Why the majority of Americans decided to return this administration to office is a question that needs an answer. When historians look back and write about the Bush administration there will be so many areas that will be documented showing how poorly this country was run from the year 2001 though 2008. They will also document how the inept leadership of George W. Bush harmed this nation long after he has retired in Texas.