From the outset of the Bush administration, a tug-of-war developed among White House national security leaders. Secretary of State Powell and Rumsfeld clashed over a NATO force that excluded American troops as well as deployment of NMD. And disagreements between Vice President Cheney and Powell may be traced back to the Gulf War where they had major differences of opinion as to how to oppose Hussein near the end of the war and afterwards. Now in the Bush administration, a power struggle emerged over jurisdiction of key foreign policy issues.

Bush expected Cheney and the vice presidential advisers to be full participants in national security policy. The administration contemplated that the NSC and Cheney’s staff would be treated as one and would exercise more influence than vice presidents in previous administrations. The vice president emerged as the winner because of his closeness to Bush and his handpicked selection of Rumsfeld to head the Pentagon. Rumsfeld was a mentor of Cheney’s extending back to the Ford administration days where Cheney was chief of staff and Rumsfeld was secretary of defense. Initially, it had been believed that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge or Senator Dan Coats of Indiana were the leading candidates for the position. But Cheney vetoed Ridge, who was close to Bush and who was endorsed for the position by Powell. A chief concern of Cheney’s was that neither Ridge nor Coats had the experience or stature to keep Powell from rolling right over them. Quite possibly Cheney was concerned about his inability to deal with foreign administrations issues because historically vice presidents have been primarily known for presiding over the Senate and breaking ties when necessary. As a result, Cheney handpicked Rumsfeld because he was someone whom he could trust.

Furthermore, Cheney tried to consolidate his position as a member of the national security team by choosing Paul Wolfowitz as deputy defense secretary. Wolfowitz was a hard-core hawk and Cold Warrior who detested Powell's dove-like conciliatory approach to conflict resolution. Wolfowitz was also extremely loyal to Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Powell countered by selecting Richard Armitage as his deputy secretary of state. Armitage was a loyalist and one of Powell’s closest friends. It was rumored that Powell initially pushed for Armitage to fill the deputy secretary of defense slot but that Cheney and Rumsfeld rejected the idea, in part, due to Armitage’s closeness to Powell.

National Security Adviser Rice was the fourth player in the power struggle. The Washington Post (February 18, 2001) reported that she indicated her “must-have” areas of influence and allowed the rest to be transferred to other agencies -- most obviously to the vice-president and to a lesser extent to the State Department. Rice’s key role was preeminent adviser on Russia, a position that some derisively referred to as “President Bush’s foreign policy tutor.” The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz wing prevailed over Powell-Armitage. But if Rice were to her throw her weight behind Powell-Armitage it could be a draw or even result in a majority of victories for Powell on important issues like Iraq, the Middle East peace process, and even Africa.

Throughout Campaign 2000, Bush made implicit promises that would be nearly impossible to keep. While faulting the Clinton administration for sparsely funding the armed forces, he campaigned to improve the morale of the military and pledged to increase the Pentagon’s budget. And he pledged to implement new systems including the National Missile Defense System (NMD). The president earmarked $45 billion for defense, and a significant portion of that was targeted for research and development.

Bush’s budget for Fiscal 2003 was the largest military spending increase since the Reagan administration. The $355.5-billion package gave the war-time Pentagon “every resource, every weapon and every tool they need.” Overwhelmingly approved by Congress, the measure contains a 4.1 percent salary increase for military personnel, $7.4 billion to keep developing a ballistic missile defense system, and $72 billion for new weapons.

The budget came at a time when Bush had been lobbying Congress and the United Nations to back an American invasion of Iraq. And it came at a time when American troops were spread across the globe in an effort to fight terrorism. The budget increased Pentagon spending in almost every area by a total of more than $34 billion, or 11 percent, over fiscal 2002. It was the biggest increase in 20 years. . (Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2002)

USING 9-11 AS A PRETENSE TO ESCALATE THE PENTAGON BUDGET. Riding high on his high popularity as a war-time president, Bush all but demanded an record-breaking astonishing Pentagon budget of $379 billion, -- an increase of $48 billion since the September 11 terrorist attacks. That was $600 billion more than was anticipated before September 11. The 2003 budget was supposed to be $379 billion. Bush refused to junk such Cold War relics as the M-1 Abrams tank.

Bush still clung to missile defense, asking for $7.8 billion, even though a new study by the Congressional Budget Office pegged the cost for a full-scale system at $68 billion or more. When the president called for more funds for the National Missile Defense system, the Democrats remained silent, refusing to question how an anti-missile system would thwart terrorism. When the president asked for unprecedented Pentagon spending, the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill again rolled over. It was not until the end of February 2002 that congressional Democrats finally challenged Bush’s request for a $379 billion budget request. And for the first time, some questioned Bush’s strategy in Afghanistan.

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, grilled top defense officials at a budget hearing about the lack of an “exit strategy” in Afghanistan and their failure to capture Osama Bin Laden. Byrd also questioned the administration’s widening global campaign against terrorists that seemed to have “no end in sight.” (Washington Post, February 29, 2002)

Byrd said the Pentagon had sent him documents estimating that the war would cost $30 billion in 2002 fiscal year. That meant Congress would be asked to provide an extra $12.6 billion in addition to $17.4 billion in supplemental spending that was approved in late 2001.

FAILING ANOTHER GAO AUDIT. In the spring of 2003, the General Accounting Office announced the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in as many years. Operating with a record-shattering $400 billion dollar budget, the Pentagon could not properly explain many of its expenditures. A study by the Defense Department’s inspector general found that the Pentagon failed to account for trillions of dollars. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

In June 2002 the GAO reviewed the history of a proposed Corporate Information Management system, or CIM. The initiative began in 1989 as an attempt to unify more than 2,000 overlapping systems then being used for billing, inventory, personnel, and similar functions. But after “spending about $20 billion, the CIM initiative was eventually abandoned,” the GAO said. (San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 2003)

David H. Hackworth was one of the most decorated soldiers in the United States Army. His career spanned nearly a dozen wars and conflicts, from the end of World War II to the Kosovo war. The Pentagon got into a credit-card giveaway program without even a minimal credit check for its cardholders because, so they thought, the cards would reduce paperwork and thus save money. On August 7, 2001, Hackworth wrote about the stealing that occurred as a result of the mass issue of Pentagon credit cards:

*A Marine sergeant ran up a $20,000 bill on clothes and other personal goodies. He even made his overdrawn sea bag.

* An Army soldier blew $3,100 in a nightclub. A champagne-and- caviar night for the perp and pals on the taxpayers.

*A dead sailor somehow spent $3,565 that was not accounted for,

* A soldier's wife spent $13,053 during a shopping spree and a holiday in Puerto Rico.

* Other scams include a $13,000 Nordstorm designer briefcase, expensive computer monitors, Palm Pilots, cosmetics and gift certificates.

*Tanya Mays, a Navy employee, who allegedly charged nearly $12,000 in personal expenses on her government credit card, was promoted to a key Army financial management office at the Pentagon and placed in charge of “cash integration.” According to testimony given before the House Government Reform subcommittee, Tanya Mays was never disciplined and was never been asked to repay the government for any of the purchases. They included a computer, a kitchen appliance, clothing, and groceries. (Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2002)

More than 46,000 Defense Department employees had defaulted on $62 million in official travel expenses charged to the government cards as of November 2001, according to the panel. Banks were forced to write off the bad debts at a rate of $1 million a month.

Investigating the fraud, the House Government Reform subcommittee was given a confidential list of the 713 officers who had been unpaid for seven months or more and included individual balances of up to $8,000. Officers ranged from junior lieutenants to senior colonels and a Navy captain. (Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2002)

David H. Hackworth was one of the most decorated soldiers in the United States Army. His career spanned nearly a dozen wars and conflicts, from the end of World War II to the Kosovo war. The Pentagon got into a credit-card giveaway program without even a minimal credit check for its cardholders because, so they thought, the cards would reduce paperwork and thus save money. On August 7, 2001, Hackworth wrote about the stealing that occurred as a result of the mass issue of Pentagon credit cards:

FIGHTING A ONE-FRONT WAR. Since 1993, the Pentagon’s strategy was to be prepared to fight two major regional wars simultaneously, for instance against Iraq and North Korea. Eight years later -- in July 2001 -- the Pentagon announced that it was abandoning this policy. The DOD ordered the armed forces to “win decisively” in a single major conflict, defend American territory against new threats and, at the same time, conduct a number of holding actions elsewhere around the globe. (New York Times, July 12, 2001)

The new approach was explained in a 29- page document known as the “terms of reference,” which the Pentagon used to guide specific policy and budget requests for personnel and weapons -- the numbers of everything from carrier battle groups to jet fighters to troops on the ground. The strategy required the American military to maintain capabilities so that it could, “concurrently” carry out four broad missions: (1) Defend United States territory; (2) Prevent aggressors from taking hostile action by making them afraid of a response from American forces in Europe, the Middle East, southwest Asia, northeast Asia, and along the East Asian rim; (3) “Win decisively” in one major conflict; and (4) Conduct “small-scale contingencies of limited duration in other areas of the world.” (New York Times, July 12, 2001)

IGNORING AMERICAN VETERANS. Bush allowed 572,000 veterans to go without health care benefits that were owed to them. A large portion of these veterans did not receive their payments because they did not know about them. In 2002, VA officials were ordered by the Bush administration “to cease efforts to enroll new patients into its health care system.” The directive said it was “inappropriate” for local VA workers to attend health fairs, open houses, and community meetings to educate veterans about what their eligibility and to enroll them in health care programs. (VFW Magazine, September 2002)

In 2004, Bush raised premiums that veterans paid for their prescription drugs. Altogether, the 2005 fiscal budget fell $2.6 billion short of what was needed to pay the benefits for veterans. (www.vfw.org, February 2, 2004; CNN, April 28, 2004)