A correction or two
Former governor Mike Huckabee said the following during the Republican Candidates Debate last Thursday night (August 6, 2015):
"We’ve reduced the military by 25 percent under President Obama. The disaster is that we’ve forgotten why we have a military. The purpose of it is to make sure that we protect every American, wherever that American is, and if an American is calling out for help, whether it’s in Benghazi or at the border, then we ought to be able to answer it. We’ve not done that because we’ve decimated our military. We’re flying B-52s. The most recent one that was put in service was November of 1962. A lot of the B-52s we’re flying, we’ve only got 44 that are in service combat ready, and the fact is, most of them are older than me. And that’s pretty scary."
I'll give him credit. He got one factoid right. The last B-52 did come off of the production line in 1962. It's the rest of what he said that's just plain wrong.
Multiple sources report the current fleet of B-52s as numbering 77 aircraft, all but one of which are combat ready or can be made so in less than a week. The fleet has been upgraded and modernized right up to the CONECT upgrade begun only two years ago. That upgrade involves modernizing communications, avionics and computing on the flight deck.
Governor Huckabee also forgot to mention that the Air Force currently has 66 B-1B and 20 B-2 bombers (although at the moment it is estimated by experts that less than 10 of the B-2s are currently Fully Mission Capable [FMC]). Or that the B-52 is expected to be fully capable and operational beyond the year 2040. Or that there are two programs developing the next two generations of bombers.
We haven't decimated our military and the spending in FY2014 and FY2015 proves this. The actual enacted budgets for the two years show a 0.4% reduction in spending from FY2015 over the FY2014 totals. But when you factor in the reductions in manpower and the cancellation of previously approved weapons acquisition programs, it actually make the budget numbers flat. No significant decrease or increase. Governor Huckabee himself will admit, if forced, that the U. S. still has the best military force in the world.
Fortunately for all of there, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that he'll ever be our Commander-in-Chief.
"We’ve reduced the military by 25 percent under President Obama. The disaster is that we’ve forgotten why we have a military. The purpose of it is to make sure that we protect every American, wherever that American is, and if an American is calling out for help, whether it’s in Benghazi or at the border, then we ought to be able to answer it. We’ve not done that because we’ve decimated our military. We’re flying B-52s. The most recent one that was put in service was November of 1962. A lot of the B-52s we’re flying, we’ve only got 44 that are in service combat ready, and the fact is, most of them are older than me. And that’s pretty scary."
I'll give him credit. He got one factoid right. The last B-52 did come off of the production line in 1962. It's the rest of what he said that's just plain wrong.
Multiple sources report the current fleet of B-52s as numbering 77 aircraft, all but one of which are combat ready or can be made so in less than a week. The fleet has been upgraded and modernized right up to the CONECT upgrade begun only two years ago. That upgrade involves modernizing communications, avionics and computing on the flight deck.
Governor Huckabee also forgot to mention that the Air Force currently has 66 B-1B and 20 B-2 bombers (although at the moment it is estimated by experts that less than 10 of the B-2s are currently Fully Mission Capable [FMC]). Or that the B-52 is expected to be fully capable and operational beyond the year 2040. Or that there are two programs developing the next two generations of bombers.
We haven't decimated our military and the spending in FY2014 and FY2015 proves this. The actual enacted budgets for the two years show a 0.4% reduction in spending from FY2015 over the FY2014 totals. But when you factor in the reductions in manpower and the cancellation of previously approved weapons acquisition programs, it actually make the budget numbers flat. No significant decrease or increase. Governor Huckabee himself will admit, if forced, that the U. S. still has the best military force in the world.
Fortunately for all of there, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that he'll ever be our Commander-in-Chief.
posted by me at 11:12 PM
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