ASHINGTON - In recruiting, retention, morale, and combat readiness, the US military has serious problems that Vice President Al Gore either doesn't understand or has ''chosen not to tell the truth about,'' Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said yesterday.
He acknowledged, however, that major cutbacks in the military began on his watch as the first post-Cold War defense secretary. And, in response to an irate letter from a Democratic senator, Cheney refused to back down from a campaign statement depicting Gore, an Army veteran, as ''AWOL on veterans' issues.''
Cheney said he had not seen the statement and, until he does, cannot say whether it was appropriate to use the acronym that means ''absent without leave,'' a grave military offense, to describe the Democratic presidential candidate. He told ''Meet the Press'' host Tim Russert: ''I have not used that word. I don't think it's appropriate of you to attribute it to me.''
Cheney discussed military readiness on three Sunday talk shows.
There is plenty of evidence, Cheney said on NBC, ''in terms of readiness and morale, the problems with recruiting, problems with retention, that the military is in trouble today.''
On ABC's ''This Week,'' he said: ''There are serious problems out there in respect to the overall quality of the force. There's no question that we've got a great military today, but it's headed in the wrong direction.''
Based on his discussions with military leaders, he said, ''either Al Gore doesn't know what's going on in the US military, or he's chosen not to tell the truth about it.''
In response, a Gore campaign spokesman, Douglas Hattaway, said the Republicans have lost all credibility on defense.
''Cheney already admitted that military downsizing began under the Bush-Quayle-Cheney administration,'' Hattaway said. ''So either Cheney doesn't know what he's talking about, or they can't get their story together on the military. I think it all shows that Bush is not ready to be commander in chief.''
George W. Bush, who heads the Republican presidential ticket, raised the issue of military preparedness last week in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Milwaukee. He said the next president would inherit a military in decline.
Cheney repeated the charge yesterday. ''I think if you match our forces today up against any others around the world, we've got the best force,'' he said on NBC. ''The problem is it's in decline, and this administration has done very little to reverse that decline.''
He was asked about the Democratic contention that President Clinton assumed command in 1993 of a military that already was being cut back during the Bush administration by the defense secretary, Cheney.
''When we came in in '89, we still had a Cold War,'' Cheney said. ''We had to be ready to fight an all-out global nuclear war that would begin with a few hours' notice.'' At the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union dissolved, ''all of us agreed that it was time to downsize the force,'' Cheney said.
The problem now, he said, is ''they've continued to cut. They've cut too far. They've cut too deep.''
Cheney's assertion came under fire yesterday from Democrats.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, criticized Bush for inaccurately telling the Republican National Convention that two US Army divisions are unready for action. Levin said the units were on duty in Bosnia and Kosovo late last year.
''If anything will sap morale'' of troops, it's that kind of statement, he said on CNN.
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who followed Cheney on NBC, said, ''Dick Cheney is flat wrong, and George Bush is flat wrong, about questions of preparedness.'' He blamed the booming civilian economy for problems with military recruiting and retention, and said the Clinton administration is working to change that with pay raises and other personnel moves.
Kerry, who like Gore served in Vietnam, was exercised over the Bush-Cheney campaign's use of the term AWOL to describe Gore in its dissection of ''The Clinton-Gore Record on Veterans.'' Neither Republican served in Vietnam.
Kerry wrote in a letter dated Saturday to Bush and Cheney: ''In light of your service, Governor Bush, in the National Guard, and your service, Mr. Secretary, in the Defense Department, I know that you should be particularly sensitive to the full connotation of the word AWOL when applied to a veteran who volunteered for duty in Vietnam.''
