ATLANTA -- Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney lashed out at the Clinton administration Wednesday for adopting policies he said had reduced the morale of the U.S. military and diminished its ability to respond to foreign conflicts.

"To point out that our military has been overextended, taken for granted and neglected -- that is no criticism of the military. That is a criticism of a president and a vice president and the record they have built together," Cheney said in a speech to the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta.

"Our military today is overused and under-resourced," Cheney told a crowd of about 300 Republicans, including several war veterans.

Cheney, who served as secretary of defense during the 1991 Gulf War, blamed President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, for cutting military spending too deeply during their eight years in the White House.

Cheney said the cuts combined with an unclear and growing number of overseas deployments were stretching the (armed) services to the limit and causing shortages of spare parts and equipment.

He argued that it was the military build-up begun during the Republican administrations of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush that had enabled the United States and its allies to win the Gulf War.

Republicans, perceiving a chink in the Democrats' armor, have strived to make the debate over U.S. military preparedness one of the cornerstones of this year's presidential campaign.

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, highlighted the issue at the Republican convention earlier this month when he said that two of the 10 U.S. army divisions were not ready for duty.

The Pentagon later said the divisions had not been ready for a brief period, but that the problem had been fixed.

"By twisting facts about our military for partisan gain, Governor Bush has demonstrated that he is not ready to be America's commander in chief," said Douglas Hattaway, national spokesman for the Gore campaign.

"Our military is the strongest, most capable, most ready fighting force in the world," Hattaway added.

Democrats also have pointed out that the shrinking of the U.S. military began after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe during the administration of Bush's father, former U.S. President George Bush. Cheney served in Bush's administration.

Cheney said the Bush administration had begun a 25-percent reduction in the military, but argued that Clinton and Gore had implemented cuts that were "far beyond any careful weighing of the national interest.

Cheney vowed that Republicans would increase military spending, accelerate deployment of missile defenses and launch a review of U.S. participation in overseas missions if they won the White House in November.

He also pledged that a Republican administration would improve housing, pay and education benefits for soldiers and their families.

The call for a beefed-up U.S. military came during a campaign swing through several Southern states, including North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. The South traditionally takes a hawkish stand on defense issues.