ASHINGTON - Ten years ago, President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to slash the defense budget and reduce troop levels 25 percent by the mid-1990s.
This week, Bush's son, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, and his running mate, Cheney, accused the Clinton administration of ''hollowing out'' the military during much of the past decade.
Those two conflicting points are now at the heart of a dispute in the 2000 presidential campaign over the levels of money spent for defense, military pay, and benefits, and the fighting ability of US forces.
The differences were on display in speeches to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as Bush said Monday that ''the next president will inherit a military in decline,'' and Vice President Al Gore responded yesterday that the US military is the ''strongest and best in the entire world.''
Strictly in terms of dollars, Bush's charge is questionable. William J. Perry, a defense secretary earlier in the Clinton administration, said two-thirds of the decline in defense spending during the Clinton administration was put in place by President Bush.
''This is the silliest thing I ever heard,'' John Pike, a defense analyst with the American Federation of Scientists, said of Bush's charges. ''The Cold War is over. Most of those force reductions were either accomplished or planned under the Bush administration. The Clinton administration came in and ratified them and modestly tinkered with the force structure. The big draw-downs were under President Bush.''
In terms of morale and mission, however, Bush may have tapped into a frustration among some within the military that has existed since Bill Clinton became commander-in-chief.
Clinton has faced criticism about his defense policy from his first day as president. He avoided military duty during the Vietnam War, implemented a ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy allowing gays in the military, and was mocked by some for supposedly not knowing how to salute.
Some military officials do not like the sort of peace-keeping missions and United Nations operations that Clinton has supported. And even Clinton's current defense secretary has said the Pentagon budget needs significant increases.
But the Clinton-Gore administration has had its share of military successes, including the 1999 Kosovo conflict in which 37,000 air missions were flown without the loss of a US pilot.
Today's Pentagon budget is enormous at $288 billion a year, or about 15 percent of overall federal spending. There are plenty of critics, including Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, who argue that the defense budget could be cut dramatically. But Gore and Bush are both advocating large increases. Moreover, both men support continued research for a missile-defense system, although Bush's proposal is more expensive.
The Gore campaign delighted in noting yesterday that much of the budget decline was caused by Bush's father. The defense budget stood at $210 billion in 1980, rising as a result of the buildup under President Reagan to $370 billion by the time President Bush took office in 1989.
But with the Cold War over, Bush slashed troop levels by 25 percent during a five-year period starting in 1990 and cut the defense budget by tens of billions of dollars. At the time, many of Bush's military aides, including Cheney, expressed reservations about the impact of such deep cuts. But President Bush, who broke his pledge of ''Read my lips, no new taxes,'' needed the defense savings in order to avoid more tax increases. Many of Bush's defense cuts did not take effect until the Clinton administration.
Partly as a result of these cuts, the United States today has 1.4 million men and women on active duty, down from 2.2 million during the Reagan administration.
Perry, who was defense secretary from 1994 to 1997, said two-thirds of the defense cuts during the Clinton administration were orchestrated by President Bush and Defense Secretary Cheney.
''Certain people must be getting amnesia,'' Perry told reporters yesterday in a conference call arranged by the Gore campaign. Perry stressed that he supported President Bush's defense cuts, but said it is unfair for Bush's son to criticize the Clinton-Gore administration for implementing them.
Still, after President Bush's reductions were put in place, Clinton further cut the defense budget for several years. But by 1998, with budget surpluses growing and a strong push from Perry's successor, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, the Clinton administration began aggressively increasing Pentagon spending.
Cohen, a former senator from Maine and a Republican, rebutted Bush's assertion of a military in decline. ''I think you'll see a military on the ascendance,'' Cohen said.
Military procurement, which hit a low of $43 billion in 1997, now is at $60 billion, and is scheduled to reach $70 billion within four years. In the last two years, troops received their largest pay increase in a generation. And Clinton last year approved a $112 billion increase in defense spending over the next five years.
''That's the largest increase since the end of the Cold War, and that is bound to be increased even further in the future,'' Cohen said.
But Cohen also has testified and said in an interview that even though the trend of defense cuts had been reversed in the last three years, much more needs to be spent on national security. Speaking about the projected $70 billion annual cost in procurements, he told the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this year, ''That's still not going to be enough.''
''There is no longer a peace dividend. It's over,'' Cohen testified. ''Much of what we are using today, be it in Kosovo or Bosnia or off the various coasts, is a result'' of that Reagan administration buildup. ''Well, that buildup is over, and we have built down. ... Now we've got to pay.''
In fact, over the last four years, Clinton and his top budget advisers have consistently recommended relatively small increases in defense spending. Cohen, in internal budget battles at the White House, has successfully argued for more money. The Republican-controlled Congress has padded the defense budgets even more.
In his testimony, Cohen has acknowledged problems in morale as well, using that argument to win support for increases in wages, housing allowances, and retirement and medical benefits.
Bush also may not get much of an argument out of Cohen that peacekeeping operations were putting too much of a strain on US troop capabilities. Bush said he would conduct an immediate review of those commitments if elected and would ''replace uncertain missions with well-defined objectives.''
In April, Cohen acknowledged to a Senate committee, that US troops were ''overstretched. We're engaged in many, many operations.'' Currently, US troops are scattered in nearly 100 locations around the globe, including the UN peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.
During the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush said the Army can't count on all 10 of its divisions. ''If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report - `Not ready for duty, Sir,''' Bush said. But the Clinton administration said Bush's information was outdated, and the divisions are ready for duty.
One of Bush's favorite charges is that too many troops are on food stamps. But Gore campaign officials said only 6,300 out of the 1.4 million members of the armed services are on food stamps, and most of them have large families who live on military bases. Yesterday, Gore said no soldier would be on food stamps during his administration.
Opinions were sharply drawn at the VFW convention in Milwaukee. Bruce Harder, the VFW's director of national security and foreign affairs, said the military has a problem with readiness, much of it stemming from underrecruitment for the armed services.
''This administration says that the military is completely ready for anything that might happen,'' Harder said. ''But a lot of independent evidence indicates a falling off of the readiness of our armed forces.''
Globe Staff writer Susan Milligan, traveling with Gore, contributed to this report.
