Bush Rolls Out Big Guns

Flanked by retired Gens. Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush told a group of veterans in Ohio that it's time to rebuild the morale of the U.S. military.

Addressing veterans at Wright State University, near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Bush said the military is short on equipment and some members are on food stamps.

"It's time for new leadership in Washington D.C. that will rebuild the morale of the United States military," he said. His comments were met with loud applause.

Powell, who declined early invitations from both parties to run for the White House, likened problems in the military to a spreading cancer that Bush could cure.

"Our enemies start noticing (and) before you know it you're on a path downward,'' Powell said. "That little cancer starts to break out in the body of the armed forces.''

The Clinton-Gore White House has played a game of "Let's pretend that all is well," he said. "All of us have been through it recently and we don't want it to happen again," he added, gesturing to fellow military leaders surrounding the GOP candidate on-stage.

Schwarzkopf concurred, saying Bush possessed the vision to anticipate post-Cold War security concerns.

"We've done a pretty lousy job of predicting who our next enemy is going to be'' in the past century, he said. Now, he added, "we have somebody who is going to step up and who has clearly recognized the problem."

Earlier Thursday, Bush appeared with Powell at a Veterans of Foreign Wars gathering in Westland, Michigan, where he vowed he would push hard for high-tech military modernization. He accused the Clinton-Gore administration of lagging in "protecting ourselves and our allies from the new threats in the world."

Bush said the nation "has the opportunity to redefine how war is fought and won in the future, and therefore we have the opportunity to redefine how the peace is kept."

He added that as president he would assemble a task force of military leaders to come up with a "strategic plan for what the military ought to look like in the years to come.

"We know it's not going to look like the great American moment of Desert Storm and Desert Shield," Bush said. "A military of the future is not going to be that heavy, and it's not going to be that hard to move."

Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, was campaigning on the same subject at a Portland, Maine, company that makes valves for submarines.

Cheney said the administration has not invested enough in new military technology and equipment, leaving the nation at greater risk of both domestic and international terrorism. "Is the U.S. military better off than it was eight years ago? I don't think so," Cheney said.

It was the second straight day Bush has focused on military matters. On Wednesday, wearing his blue American Legion cap from post in Houston, Bush told veterans in Milwaukee, "Let's get something straight. These are not criticisms of the military. They are criticisms of the current commander in chief and the vice president for not providing the necessary leadership."

Proving his capability on national defense and diplomacy has been a key challenge for Bush, who is convinced that the issue of military readiness is a weak spot for Democratic rival Al Gore.

But the issue stung him in July when, in his speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination, he misstated one fact when talking about Army readiness.

Bush said: "If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ... 'Not ready for duty, sir.'"

He also accuses Gore of proposing to shortchange the armed forces on funding and benefits. But the vice president's campaign released an economic plan Wednesday that would spend $100 billion of the projected budget surplus on the military over 10 years.

Bush would dedicate $45 billion of the surplus over the same period.

"Any argument that he comes up with that we are not dedicating the resources needed for our military men and women is just talk, pure rhetoric," said Kym Spell, a spokeswoman for Gore.

Powell and Schwarzkopf are among those Bush has said he'd like on his foreign policy team, along with former secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger.