Iraqi Move Confirms Need for U.S. Arms Spending, Cheney Says

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Wednesday that Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait validates the Bush Administration’s argument that the thawing of the Cold War is not reason enough to slash the nation’s military spending.

Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of its tiny neighbor is proof that “we have not entered an era of perpetual peace,” Cheney said in a speech to the Retired Officers Assn.’s annual convention here.

“We have not reached the end of history,” he continued. “Or, if we have, no one has bothered to tell (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein.”

Cheney, whose appearance in this sweltering desert resort launched a three-day sweep through California, used Wednesday’s forum to boast of America’s military might--and warn that excessive defense cuts today would lead to ill-prepared armed forces tomorrow.

The United States, he said, has deployed “with very short notice an enormously capable fighting force” of more than 100,000 on a battlefield 8,000 miles away. Five billion tons of cargo and equipment have been shipped to the gulf, the equivalent, Cheney said, of “moving the entire population of Whittier” and all its household goods.

“You can eviscerate a defense force overnight with budget cuts,” Cheney told his highly sympathetic audience, which included retired officers from all four military branches. “But it takes years of adequate funding to create the kind of force we now have in the gulf.”

Cheney offered few new clues about how long American troops might remain stationed in the Middle East, although he conceded that achieving the goals set by President Bush in an address Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress could require a long-term deployment.

The defense secretary dismissed as “hogwash,” however, the suggestion that public support for Operation Desert Shield might fade over the long haul.

Americans understand that commitments like the current Middle East deployment are “part of what it means to be a world power,” Cheney argued, adding that public support for the Vietnam War was “far stronger, even at the end, than many people are now ready to admit.”

Cheney is scheduled today to visit Ft. Ord and Travis Air Force Base, where he will meet with the crew of a C-5 transport plane preparing to fly to the Mideast.