October 05, 2004
On the backside draft of the National Guard and lies about extended service benefits
by Liza Sabater
American Prospect Online - ViewWeb
In all, the Pentagon estimates that this would cost a little less than $2 billion per year for the next five years. Though this is a relatively small amount by Pentagon standards, the Bush administration has expressed its hostility toward allocating Defense Department funds to pay for these provisions. In a letter to the Senate Arms Services Committee dated June 28, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz claimed that the costs of the Graham-Daschle amendment “could only come at the expense of other higher-priority defense needs.”
But by the National Guard Association’s estimates, reservists constitute nearly one-half of all forces participating in homeland defense and “global war on terrorism missions.” As a spokeswoman at the National Guard Association told me, “Guardsmen and women are being used in a different way than in the past. They train just as hard as full-time soldiers, and, as we see in Iraq, are deployed for long periods of time.”
The temporary expansion of TRICARE that President Bush referred to in his speech is set to expire in December (that is, a month after the election). The president’s calculated remarks to the National Guard Association were meant to give rhetorical support to “expanding” health-care availability to reservists, while still opposing legislation that addresses the health-care crisis facing uninsured reservists in a meaningful way.
Posted by Liza Sabater in 2004 Elections, Health, Propaganda, Sidelinks, War
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