Who really decimated the US military?

OK, I'm sick of another all-too-common rewriting of history by Hannity and his lemmings.

Lately they've been laying the groundwork for scapegoating Bill Clinton for the supposed decimation of US military services during his tenure as President. I don't recollect for sure whether Hannity himself makes these claims, but his callers sure do, and Hannity makes no attempt whatsoever to correct them.

Here are some hard hitting facts, Sean et. al.:

1. Major US military reductions occurred in the years 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2005, under a congressional plan called the Base Realignment and Closure process. Bill Clinton was never a congressman. Bill Clinton was not President in 1988.

2. Of the 5 BRAC procedures, Clinton was in office for only two (1993 and 1995). For the later, both the House and Senate were firmly controlled by Republicans.

3. BRAC was conceived during the tail-end of the 40 year span of Democratic control of the House. So, if you'd like to blame this on the Dems, there's your starting point. But, FWIW, Ronald Reagan was in office at this time, GHW Bush was VP, and DICK Cheney was a member of that very congress.

4. As I recall, the logic behind BRAC was that the US Military was too troop-heavy, was built for the obsoleted cold war, was too expensive, had too much redundancy, needed more reliance on high technology, and was in great need of streamlining and high efficiency. I seriously doubt many Republicans of the time would have a problem with any of these reasonings.

5. The manner in which BRAC is structured intentionally removes the President from any input to the process. When he approves or disapproves the BRAC recommended closings, it is an all-or-nothing deal (eg, if 71 bases are recommended for closing, he can approve all 71 or disapprove all 71. Nothing in between) Disapproval can be overridden by the House.