Murtha & Pelosi Getting Dirtier At The Trough (Update: Add Republicans Too)

More news is coming out that sheds a harsh light on Murtha's antics in the House in regards to the proposed 23 million in pork he wants to keep the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) alive in his district. This is the same earmark over which Murtha threatened Congressman Mike Rogers. See here. And it throws an equally harsh light on the descent of Pelosi's Congress into the muck and mire that she promised to clean up.

The House Intelligence Committee notified all members of a March 23 deadline date for submitting ear mark certification letters proposing additions to the House Intelligence budget request. By House rules, a copy of the certification letter was to be provided both to the Committee Chairman and to the ranking Republican on the Committee, Rep. Pete Hoeksra.

Murtha submitted his earmark certification letter for the NDIC five weeks late on the day prior to Committee hearings on the budget. He failed to provide a copy to the ranking Republican on the Committee. Not surprisingly, these acts of Murtha, coupled with, among other things, Murtha's threats to Rep. Rogers over challenges to this pork barrel project and Pelosi's threat to overturn House rules near two centuries old in order to marginalize the Republican minority, have led the Republicans to call foul. Not only has Pelosi failed to run "the most ethical House in history," as she promised in the 06 campaign, but things have taken a turn for the worse. Earmarks have only become less transparent and accountable, and on top of that, "there is a growing pattern of abuses on the part of Democrats" of the House rules. Its just not getting any print in the MSM.

As to Rep. Rogers and his complaint against threats by Murtha over the NDIC earmark:

[Rogers] introduced a privileged resolution Monday night reprimanding Murtha for the threat, but Democrats postponed a vote on the measure. Democrats have a 48-hour window to decide whether the resolution’s claims are valid, which in turn would allow an hour of debate and a vote. One Democratic source said that a vote could come Tuesday.

Read the entire story here.

Update: While the criticism of Murtha and Pelosi stand, it is also true that Republicans have not given up at the trough either. The Hill is reporting that 8 billion in earmarks have been approved as part of Murtha's Defense Appropriations bill, and that a full 40% of that is going to fund pet pork of Republican legislatiors. Eight billion would fund a lot of boots on the ground in Iraq, alleviating the strain we are putting on our soldiers. It would fund a lot of health care for soldiers missing limbs and suffering brain injuries from concussive force. Not a dime of this 8 billion is being spent appropriately, and beyond that, some of it is clearly being misspent to fund projects that our military does not want:

One of Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-Calif.) favorite requests, the Sea-Fighter project (also known as X-Craft), built by L3 Communications Titan Group, made it into the bill. Hunter, the committee’s ranking member, requested $22 million for the project. Last year, Hunter added $25.7 million despite the Navy’s reluctance to spend money on the project, according to a Congress Daily report.

Read the entire sordid story here.

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U.S. Military Equipment Shortfalls a "Disaster"

Retired Major General Robert Scales has addressed the equipment shortfalls now being experienced by our military, which he describes as a disaster:

Most Army brigades are "not combat ready" in part because of equipment shortages. Brigades consist of people and equipment, so the significance of "not combat ready" loses a great deal in translation. . . The bottom line is that virtually any brigade not in Iraq cannot be equipped for war for a very, very long time.

While the true magnitude of the Army's equipment disaster remains clouded in classification, the anecdotal evidence of impending collapse is anywhere you choose to look. For the first time in nearly half a century the 82nd Airborne Division cannot generate enough combat power to put one of its brigades on strategic alert. A retired general friend visited a division at a very large post that has only 30 of its 240 tanks in working order. One general who daily works on equipment issues in the Pentagon reflected on the past: "Remember, after the collapse of the Soviet Union how the Russians left mountains of junked equipment to rust away in Eastern European motor pools? Well, we're nearly there now."

The Army will continue to wear out its equipment at prodigious rates. The pace of this decline is painful to watch. Usage rates for tanks during peacetime are about 550 miles per tank per year. Today in Iraq tanks average over 5,000 miles per year. At these rates the Army will have no choice but to virtually rebuild itself after Iraq.

How did the richest nation on the planet allow its Army to reach this condition? The answer is simply that for half a century every administration has continued the habit of undermanning and underequipping land forces, . . .

. . . The Army went into this war $56 billion short of equipment inside its deployed brigades and was suffering from a $44 billion deficit in delayed or cancelled programs for new weapons and equipment. Now the Army must restock. There are two choices, one cheap, one right. The cheap solution would be to repair the mountain of Cold War fighting gear that served the Army so well in the Gulf War and put it back into action for the next generation.

But cheap won't work because our Cold War fleet was designed to fight on the plains of Europe in huge tank-on-tank engagements against the Soviets. The heavily armored behemoths necessary for this style of war are not suitable for fighting the "long war." Yesterday's tank weighs more than 70 tons. It cannot move great distances. It consumes a huge amount of fuel that must be transported by vulnerable unarmored convoys from Kuwait to Baghdad. It cannot be easily transported by air. And it takes a multitude of repairmen -- many of them civilian contractors -- and a huge base infrastructure to keep it running in the punishing heat and dust of Iraq.

We have learned from painful experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that tomorrow's ground forces must be re-equipped with many more fighting vehicles that are light, mobile, easily transported and capable of keeping more soldiers protected for longer periods. Properly equipping the Army to win the long war will be very expensive. But we have fought 12 wars in the last 30 years and all but one has been decided on the ground. We will fight another one sooner than any of us would like. If we are to break the cycle of underfunding followed by rapid re-funding that has caused so much human tragedy, we must start now and must build a new Army for tomorrow rather than put yesterday's Army back on the shelf.

Read the entire article here. This is at once a disgrace and a crisis. Our military was allowed to truly atrophy in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union - the much vaunted peace divided. Indeed, we are now involved in two wars with a third possible in Iran, yet we have the smallest military since World War II. And there is blame to go around here. While it is beyond doubt that the underfunding of our military spans generations, the fact is that we had six years of a wartime Republican administration that reveled in record levels of domestic pork barrel spending, yet nowhere near enough attention paid to our military. This is unconscionable.

And now we have Democrats such as Jack Murtha who, rather then fix the problem, seek instead to use the problem as a basis for withdrawal from Iraq. Indeed, it would seem a significant amount of funds that could have been used to fix this problem were diverted to pork to buy the votes necessary to legislate that withdrawal - something equally unconscionable. The only way this problem will be fixed is if it sees the light of day. Bush nor any of the elected Republicans have raised this issue with any force. Bush needs to make a public mea culpa on his administrations responsibility for this problem and outline what funds the Congress needs to authorize to fix it -- or, in other words, what is the price tag to "support the troops." Allowing this problem to fester is nonsensical and, in the not too distant future, a sure recipe for disaster.

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The Senate Retreats to the Trough

Once again, with no recognition of the recent political successes of the Maliki government, nor the successes of the surge, nor any hint of the reality going on in Iraq, a legislative body of Congress has placed partisan politics and pork over our national security and voted to retreat from Iraq. Taking a page from the unethical acts of Nancy Pelosi, the equally unethical and cynical Harry Reid piled on 20 billion in pork to buy votes. And this time he was successful. Almost completely along party lines, Harry Reid legislated defeat in Iraq by the vote of 50-48.

To say it is maddening would be an understatement. But then it was made worse by smug comments like these from Harry Reid after the vote:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, played down the veto threat. In a speech on the Senate floor on Monday, Mr. Reid said the president was on the wrong side of public opinion. "He can swagger all he wants," Mr. Reid said, "but we have 3,241 dead Americans."

Is Senator Reid suggesting that legislation is now to be subject to a Pew poll of 1,000 people rather then informed debated on the Iraq War by our elected officials? If so, Senator Reid is superfluous. And if not, I still think him superfluous. What an utterly worthless son of a bitch he is. Just as we seem to be seeing things going right in Iraq - in large measure because of those dead Americans - he now uses their number as a justification for retreat. This man does no honor to our war dead, but rather uses them for his own partisan political gain.

The radical left wing of the Democratic Party is in control –and even the "blue dog" Democrats are giving in. It is completely clear that a number of senators understand precisely the effect that they are having on the effort in Iraq – and it is equally clear that they are either putting partisan political gain or pork above our national security, or they are simply being mowed down in their beliefs by the Kos Kids / George Soros / Moveon.Org crowd that now claim to own the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

This from Don Surber:

In June 2006, Sen. Kent Conrad said: "I do not believe that it is a wise policy to set a specific date for a withdrawal from Iraq."

While stumping for votes last September, senatorial candidate Jim Webb said: "Anyone who tells you we can set a timetable for withdrawal doesn’t understand war. And anyone who says that nothing can be done to speed a secure peace doesn’t understand America."

On March 8, Sen. Ben Nelson said: "I’m bothered by dates. I think you still have to go on conditions for staying."

On March 12, Sen.

Evan Bayh wrote: "I, for example, am not in support of circling a date on a calendar and saying, ‘no matter what, we’re out on that date.’"

And add to that list, Harry Reid himself, along with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, as pointed out by Mitch McConnell:

Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, my good friend the Majority Leader himself said this: "As for setting a timeline, as we learned in the Balkans, that’s not a wise decision, because it only empowers those who don’t want us there, and it doesn’t work well to do that."

Six months after that, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden, said this: "A deadline for pulling out … will only encourage our enemies to wait us out" … it would be "a Lebanon in 1985. And God knows where it goes from there." That was our friend, Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And three months later, Senator Clinton made the same point when she said, "I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawal," said Senator Clinton. "I don’t think you should ever telegraph your intentions to the enemy so they can await you." That’s the Majority Leader, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and a prominent Democrat presidential candidate.

But for a misguided few who actually believe heart and soul that the Iraq war is a moral question (Bush lied, people died, war bad, must leave bad war – the Kucinich philosophy), none of the Democrats who voted for this abortion of a bill today have the courage of their convictions. They either seek partisan gain at whatever the cost to our national security, or they have been cowed, convicted and bribed into supporting a retreat.

Moreover, what I find very distressing is that none of the Republicans will fight back. This vote was a scandal -- a real one, not like the fired attorneys. Each person who voted for this needs to be called out, either for gross stupidity or hypocrisy, as applicable, and it needs to be done in the strongest of possible terms. Senate Minority Ldr McConnell is an effective speaker, but what the Republicans need now is B-1 Bob Dornan.

This also might well be the time for our friendly independent, Joe Lieberman, to reconsider a party affiliation.

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