Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security [Hardcover]

Winslow T. Wheeler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

In this damning expose, a veteran senate defense advisor argues that since Sept 11, 2001, the conduct of the U.S. Congress has sunk to new depths and endangered the nation's security. Winslow Wheeler draws on three decades of work with four prominent senators to tell in lively detail how members of Congress divert money from essential war-fighting accounts to pay for pork in their home states, cook the budget books to pursue personal agendas, and run for cover when confronted with tough defense issues. With meticulous documentation to support his claims, he contends that this behavior is not confined to one party or one political philosophy. He further contends that senators who sell themselves as reformers and journalists covering Capitol Hill are simply not doing their jobs. Pork is far from a new phenomenon in Washington, yet most Americans fail to understand its serious consequences. Wheeler knows the harm it does and challenges citizens to take action against lawmakers pretending to serve the public trust while sending home the bacon. Dubbed a "Hill Deep Throat" who participated in the game he now criticizes, he fills his book with evidence of Congressional wrongdoing, naming names and citing specific examples. Pointing to the extremes that have become routine in the legislative process, he focuses on defense appropriations and Congress's willingness to load down defense bills with pork, in some cases with the Pentagon's help. On the question of deciding war, he accuses today's members of Congress of lacking the character of their predecessors, often positioning themselves on both sides of the question of war against Iraq without probing the administration's justifications. Wheelerconcludes with a model for reform that he calls twelve not-so-easy steps to a sober Congress.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a tell-all about the cowardice of Congress." -- Eleanor Clift, MSNBC.com, December 10, 2004

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159114938X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591149385
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,109,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobody to blame but ourselves, December 2, 2004

By 

C. W. Richards (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security (Hardcover)

The Framers of the Constitution, in their efforts to improve an inadequate Articles of Confederation, spent a lot of time worrying about what powers the central government should have and how these powers should be distributed among the branches so that government could perform its essential functions but not threaten the people's liberties. The solution they devised was the system of checks-and-balances familiar to every American high school civics student. Winslow Wheeler's thesis is that after 217 years, that system no longer works.

What he means is that Congress has given up so much of its constitutional power to the executive branch that our system of government has settled into a stable state where Congress is a spectator to - rather than a check upon - presidential power. As Wheeler takes pains to point out, the dollar amounts wasted in pork are not the problem. In FY 2005, pork, that is items placed into the DoD budget by members of Congress, amount to something like $8.5 - $10 billion, which sounds like serious money until you realize that it's shoveled on top of a defense budget that will approach $500 billion (including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan). And yes, much of that money is coming out of the O&M (operations and maintenance) accounts and so will shortchange our troops of many of the low-tech but essential items they need to survive and do their jobs. This is a travesty, surely, but it's where the money is transferred from, not the amount of pork, per se, that is the problem.

What makes the system stable is what senators and representatives have to do to get their share. Basically, they have to support the existing system or that system will not reward the member when time comes to ladle out pork or choose candidates for the next primary. The system, though, is more than mutual backscratching in the quest for handouts. Members have to demonstrate their loyalty by supporting critical decisions by congressional leaders, the most important of which is the determination of when to employ American military forces. As Wheeler reminds us, the question of when the president can go to war and for how long and what type of authorization he needs, if any, goes all the way back to the debates of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Since the Tonkin Gulf Resolution under Lyndon Johnson, power over war has shifted strongly to the executive branch, ironically in ways that the framers envisioned might happen and went to great lengths to try to prevent. Despite a small setback under Nixon (due more to his political bungling than any desire to respect the Constitution), this shift continued under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and has reached what appears to be the end state under George W. Bush.

On October 2, 2002, the president requested and on October 10 received congressional authority to go to war with Iraq at the time of his choosing, on whatever grounds he found adequate, and with or without allied support. Congress abandoned its duty to deliberate a declaration of war, or even think cogently about the "specific statutory authorization" required under the War Powers Act. Not one word of the draft sent over by the White House was changed by either the House or the Senate, despite issues with the rationale that were even then becoming apparent. Congressional leaders, for reasons Wheeler enumerates, handed the administration a blank check.

Wheeler is a non-partisan berserker for the Constitution, indicting Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. He names them and gives the dates that they engaged in their acts of commission and more frequently omission. It is an ironclad case. The real tragedy in Wheeler's book is that we have done all this to ourselves. We are a democracy and we get the government we deserve, so it is up to all of us to deserve better, with our votes and with our support to congressional campaigns. It is time to heed Wheeler's call to get mad and take our country back.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Senate Money Can Buy, November 8, 2004

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security (Hardcover)

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 our Senate:

Added $4 Billion in pork projects such as the new army museum in Robert Byrd's state, new parking lots in Ted Stevens stare, a career development center (whatever that is) in Pete Domenici's state.

To pay for it they took $2.4 Billion out of the defense bill's accounts that supported training, weapons maintenance, spare parts (just the things soldiers need most). This was done just as the first American casualties were coming home from the fighting in Afghanistan, some of them in boxes.

How is this done? How is this hidden from the press (or does the press care)? Is this really the best we can do with an elected Government?

Mr. Wheeler spent 31 years working on national security issued for members of the U.S. Senate and the General Accounting Office. He was pressured to resign because of an essay he wrote exposing these antics of Congress.

This book is a summary of the ways that the Senate (and Congress) go about their business as usual while young men are dying.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful Reading, More Opinion than Research, February 12, 2005

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security (Hardcover)

Edit of 10 Oct 08 to add comment pointing to author's really excellent and detailed summary of what is wrong with Pentagon today (including budget data), and more links.

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

What the author does in this book is focus on the failings of Congress. What the author does not do is provide a more documented analysis of why and how Congress has become disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent, or why the Executive does not balance Congress when the latter abuse their powers. The "balance of power" is in fact a "balance of pork privileges," and it is this inability, as the author describes it, to focus on all the facts, in an objective way, in order to make the best application of the taxpayer dollar, that cripples Congress (and the Executive).

I've given the author four stars because I disagree with those who would demean his motives. What I read here is consistent with the other books I have read--and my own experience talking to generally witless under-educated staff (because I am not important enough to get to the few who are "top notch"). When the author open his book by pointing out that ***all*** watchdog or balancing elements--the media, the think tanks--have failed to hold Congress accountable, I must agree with him.

The most interesting "thread" within the book has to do with information--what information gets where, who sees it, what do they do with it. At the end, the author concludes, most Members are not doing their homework, and most staffs are too busy focused on inserting partisan advantage and localized pork to actually serve the people of the United States in an effective manner.

The book is unusual in being focused on national security and defense, where the author spent his entire career, and what jumped out at me is that Congress has no grand strategy--Congress, like the Executive, is fragmented into stovepipes and is not able to make thoughtful trade-offs at the big picture level between Diplomacy Information Military Economic (DIME) instruments of national power.

The author is severely critical, and rightly so, I believe, in lambasting the Members for abdicating their Constitutional power to declare war. On page 221 he says that it is clear that Members consider their re-election prospects more important than the need to stand tall and oppose a war they do not support.

The author ends by proposing 12 steps for Congressional reform, among the most important of which is exposure of the truth to the public: no more Congressional Record "revisions," no more secret back-room meetings, no more fake camera shots showing Senators speaking to an empty room; no more lightweight partisan staff shuttling to jobs in the Executive they are supposed to help oversee; no more stone-walling of the press; and no more lobbyists with direct access--only constituents. These are all common sense suggestions that are helpful to the public interest.

The author's last two sentences of the book are most helpful of all: "There is really only one thing that will force members of Congress to perform as best as they are able. That is for the public to have the information to distinguish the good from the bad and the phonies from the sincere."

Public information in the public interest...this is the key.

See also, published since then:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

New Links 10 Oct 08:
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency