Top Republican Rejects Advice from 11 Generals on Coping with Climate Change and National Defense

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

President Bush and top Republican leaders have been ignoring the advice of our generals for years on Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the top House Intelligence Committee Republican is rejecting the advice of our generals about how to deal with the implications of global warming on national security.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the Intel Committee's former chairman and current ranking member, is going on the media circuit to blast a bipartisan bill that would require a National Intelligence Estimate and other evaluations of the impacts on military operations from climate change. This week he has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and given an interview on Fox News.

A commission of eleven retired three-star and four-star admirals and generals from all four branches support the proposal. They drafted a report, "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change," which explores ways that climate change will exacerbate conditions promoting terrorism and other threats around the world. It specifically calls for a national defense assessment of the impact of global warming.

Last week, the commission's chairman, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon Sullivan, expressed his gratitude for being able to testify on the findings at a hearing by the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The panel was created by Democrats this year after retaking control of Congress.

"We remain convinced that planning for potential national security implications of climate change is a smart and necessary component in American's ongoing fight against terrorism," Gen. Sullivan wrote. "We see prudent planning as a key to helping our military stay ahead of this struggle into the mid-century and beyond."

Gotta love Republicans. Why should they start making plans for addressing terrorism or climate change now? Besides, Rep. Hoekstra was a furniture salesman with an MBA before coming to Congress; what could he possibly learn from a bunch of silly generals about how to best defend America?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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