…and Kerry’s weak on defense???

Bush Exaggerates Kerry’s Position on Intelligence Budget

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A04

President Bush, in his first major assault on Sen. John F. Kerry’s legislative record, said this week that his Democratic opponent proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget, a proposal that would “gut the intelligence services,” and one that had no co-sponsors because it was “deeply irresponsible.”

In terms of accuracy, the parry by the president is about half right. Bush is correct that Kerry on Sept. 29, 1995, proposed a five-year, $1.5 billion cut to the intelligence budget. But Bush appears to be wrong when he said the proposed Kerry cut — about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years — would have “gutted” intelligence. In fact, the Republican-led Congress that year approved legislation that resulted in $3.8 billion being cut over five years from the budget of the National Reconnaissance Office — the same program Kerry said he was targeting.

The $1.5 billion cut Kerry proposed represented about the same amount Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Senate that same day he wanted cut from the intelligence spending bill based on unspent, secret funds that had been accumulated by one intelligence agency “without informing the Pentagon, CIA or Congress.” The NRO, which designs, builds and operates spy satellites, had accumulated that amount of excess funds.