As I spoke last week in San Diego, one of the great lessons of history is that if America is prepared to fight many wars and greater wars and any wars that come, then we will fight fewer wars and lesser wars and perhaps no wars at all. And it is a lesson, I say, that I think the administration's forgotten the past four years. The fact is that while the administration's increased non-defense spending by 23 percent, it has also slashed defense spending by 11 percent. And I must say, very honestly, it would have been even more, had it not been for the Republican Congress, which, in effect -- and some Democrats in the Congress; it was bipartisan -- drew a line in the sand.
The men and women who serve in our armed forces have a paid a very personal price for these reductions. As of last year, military pay was 13 percent below comparable civilian levels. And it was estimated that close to 17,000 -- believe it or not, 17,000 -- junior enlisted personnel were relying on food stamps. That should not happen if you wear the American uniform. You should not be on food stamps.
The generals said after the Persian Gulf War there was a certain pride again. And I know the Vietnam veterans in this audience might recall their ordeal when they came home. Some people literally crossed the street if they saw a uniform.
That's not happening now, and we finally erected a memorial in Washington to the Korean veterans -- the forgotten war -- the Korean veterans in this audience.
But I could say it no better than the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Bill Owens, who said -- and I quote him -- "We cannot expect service members to lay their lives on the line when back home their families have to rely on food stamps to make ends meet."
No question about it, we can do better. We must restore our nation's commitment to our men and women in uniform.
It's also a fact that much of what is left of what is the defense budget has not been used to guarantee long-term military superiority, which as a result is now very much in question. And that's just not Bob Dole, some candidate, talking, that's General Dennis Reimer, the Army Chief of Staff, who told Congress recently -- again, I quote him: "Further deferral of modernization will incur significant risk to future readiness. We must continue to produce and field adequate modern equipment or risk seeing our systems completely wear out. And at the current rate of replacement, our tank fleet will not be completely modernized for over 40 years." End of quote.
Now, if we haven't been spending money to modernize our forces, where have we been spending it? Well, in my opinion, too much has been squandered in some of the U.N. missions which have precious little to do with American security. And let me make it crystal clear -- on day one of my administration, I will place American security and American interests first, because to place them anywhere else endangers all of us, all of us.
And I will put America on a course that will end our vulnerability to missile attack. And I will never commit the armed forces, not one single American soldier, to an ordeal without the prospect of victory. And I will leave no doubt that commander-in-chief of our armed services is the president of the United States and not the secretary-general of the United Nations. I'll make that very clear at the outset.
Let me also mention a word that has become an all-too-frequent part of the American vocabulary -- the word "terrorism". Under American law, seven countries -- Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba -- are listed as state-sponsors of terrorism. And here's how this administration has chosen to deal with them: Though the secretary of State has visited Syria on more than 20 occasions, the administration refused to speak out strongly enough on Syrian support for terrorism and has opposed congressional efforts to draw attention to Syria's role in aiding and harboring terrorists.
And unbelievably, unbelieving, this administration is rewarding North Korea with U.S. nuclear reactors, despite its treaty-breaking pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and frequent threatening of South Korea, one of our allies.
And Iran was given a green light by this administration to ship weapons into Bosnia, while it opposed and vetoed bipartisan congressional attempts to arm the besieged Bosnians through legitimate U.S. and pro-American sources so they could defend themselves. They had a right to self-defense, we had 69 votes in the Senate said they had that right, but it never happened.
And U.N. sanctions on Iraq were eased with the active support of the administration, allowing Saddam Hussein access to billions of dollars in oil revenue.
And tougher sanctions on Libya were opposed.
And after three years of cozying up to Fidel Castro, it took the murder of Americans over international waters last February to convince this administration to support my legislation to impose sanctions on Cuba.
And furthermore, what kind of a message was sent to terrorists and their sponsors, when this adminstration refrained from any retaliation after Captain Scott O'Grady was shot down over Bosnia by Bosnian Serb forces?
And what would I do? I would replace this confusing message with a different one. On my first day in office, I will put terrorists and their sponsors on notice: If you harm one American, you harm all Americans. And America will pursue you till the ends of the Earth. In short, don't mess with us if you're not prepared to suffer the consequences. Don't mess with us, this is the United States of America.