Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (Senate - October 04, 2005)

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Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise to offer an amendment which would move funding for the end-strength increases included in this bill from emergency funding to regular funding, thereby increasing the top lines of the Army and Marine Corps budgets.

Let me first begin by commending Chairman Stevens and Senator Inouye for including the end-strength numbers, the increase in this legislation. There are no more dedicated individuals committed to the welfare and the efficiency of our military forces than Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye, and they have raised the end-strength numbers of the Army by 40,000, and they have raised the end-strength numbers of the Marine Corps by 3,000, and this was over the request included in the President's budget.

I think it is patently clear that additional personnel are necessary, and I am pleased to see that this is the conclusion of the Appropriations Committee. But simply raising the end-strength number, in my view, is not enough. I believe we also have to pay for these troops in a very straightforward fashion--not through emergency supplementals but through the regular budget process. If we do not start doing this now, I believe the Army and the Marine Corps will begin to pay a far greater price in the future as supplemental funding may diminish, but still the needs for an increased end strength persist.

There is an obvious need for increased end strength. On January 24, 2004, Army Chief of Staff General Schoomaker announced he had received emergency authority to temporarily increase the size of the Army by 30,000 soldiers for the following 4 years. At that time the leaders of the Department of Defense were working on a couple of assumptions.

First, they were working with a plan formulated in the fall of 2003 that calculated the numbers of forces in Iraq in mid-2005 to be approximately 40,000 troops. Remember, at that time the Pentagon was predicting our force levels in Iraq would be 40,000 troops. In the fall of 2005, at this moment, we have approximately 139,000 Army troops in Iraq, together with 25,000 marines--far above the predicted level of troops necessary, in the Pentagon's view 2 years ago, to conduct these operations.

Now this number of about 130,000 troops, Army troops and significant Marine Corps forces, has been steady or even higher from the period of March 2003, the time of the invasion, to today.

In addition, General Schoomaker recently told the Associated Press he is planning for over 100,000 troops to remain in Iraq through fiscal year 2009.

I think this is very prudent and I commend General Schoomaker for doing that which I think is necessary, of publicly stating that we at least have to assume for planning purposes a commitment of that number.

This initial assumption of 40,000 troops in place in Iraq by 2005 is clearly inadequate. It has been overtaken by events. Again I think this argues for not a temporary increase in troops but a permanent increase in end strength and regular funding.

The second point I make is that in addition to our obligations in Iraq, which require significant forces--and to have the forces in Iraq, we have to have many more forces in the Army and Marine Corps training and getting ready to go and recover--in addition to that, Secretary Rumsfeld was ambitiously moving forward on a transformation of the Army to increase the number of brigades from 33 to 48 and replace 10,000 military slots with civilian slots, significantly reducing the number of soldiers in support positions. This is a very difficult and in some cases dynamic experience. We have an army at war and an army in transformation simultaneously, but the Army is doing a magnificent job in both cases.

Secretary Rumsfeld argued that this transformation would initially cause a spike requiring again a temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers, but then within 4 years his projection was that spike would be eliminated. However, under the Army's own analysis and even if all anticipated efficiencies are widely successful, if we get the transformation of military positions and civilian positions, we are able to form these brigades to perform as they were expected to perform, and all these efficiencies are squeezed out of this transformation, the Army has suggested we will not be back down to pre-911 end strength of 482,400 until fiscal year 2011, 6 years from now.

Now that is not right. You have two demands, our commitment in Iraq and our transformation process, that drive up end strength numbers, not in the short term but actually over many years, and we know this right now.

Third, the Pentagon could not have anticipated in some cases their involvement in natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina which is creating demand for forces, particularly National Guard forces. As we understand, the National Guard is the first responders. They have in some respects a dual capacity. They serve the Governors of States, as the State militia, as a State force, and then they have a Federal role. So these demands on military forces right now, including individual units, including demands in the planning process, are a third issue that is increasing end strength numbers and, I would argue, also argue strongly for regularly paying for these forces.

Now even before General Schoomaker made his announcement in 2004 of an increase temporarily in end strength, Senator Hagel and I were arguing that we needed more troops and we needed them for a considerable length of time. I think, as I have tried to suggest, this need is even more obvious today than several years ago when Senator Hagel and I first took the floor. Yet surprisingly the President's fiscal year 2006 budget request did not ask for any additional troops in terms of end strength. They were operating on this emergency mechanism but, as I said initially, I am delighted and pleased to see that the Appropriations Committee, under the leadership of Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye, has recognized the need to formally increase end strength. What I am asking is that this formal increase of 40,000 Army troops and 3,000 marines be also complemented by including their funding in the regular baseline of these forces and not through an emergency supplemental.

This issue of funding is the purpose of my amendment. An end-strength increase of 40,000 soldiers and 3,000 marines will cost approximately $3.9 billion for 1 year of paid training, housing, and equipment. This bill funds the cost through supplemental funding, a mechanism which the Department of Defense agrees with. They have always been supportive of this, but I would argue again the assumptions that they have articulated of a temporary spike, do not consider, I think, fully the demands of transformation, and the other external demands of supporting foreign deployments and domestic operations such as Hurricane Katrina.

This funding mechanism is not the best because there are several problems with this approach. The first problem is that supplemental funding is supposed to be reserved for unforeseen or emergency events. The Army and marines have required more troops than their authorized end strengths for the past 2 years and it is likely this trend will continue for at least 4 more years. That should not be a surprise to anyone. These soldiers and marines are clearly not an unforeseen happenstance today. So I would argue it should be included in the regular budget and not through emergency supplemental funding.

The second problem is that to continue with supplemental funding creates a potentially unhealthy pattern. We pass supplemental funding many times. This funding runs out quickly before the end of the year--usually in about 9 months--and we are presented with a second supplemental bill. But these extra soldiers and marines will be in the field, we know, beyond 9 months; in fact, as I have suggested, probably for several years in terms of their total end strength.

But the Department of Defense is caught up in this cycle of asking for supplementals, running out of money and asking for another supplemental.

Again, I think with respect to this issue of predictable increases in end strength of several years, we can avoid that through regular funding.

Another problem with supplementals is the growing concern and uneasiness of the American public with respect to funding some of our operations.

Congress, to date, has appropriated $218 billion for the war in Iraq.

That does not go unnoticed by the American people.

All of this funding has been through supplementals--in effect, deficit spending.

The Congressional Budget Office points out that we will run a deficit in 2005 of about $331 billion--again, a fact not escaping the American public.

This deficit number does not include the significant costs associated with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

In an AP poll conducted 2 weeks ago, 42 percent of those polled stated that they preferred to pay for this hurricane relief by cutting spending in Iraq.

That is potentially an ominous note with respect to the priority that the American people are suggesting in this poll.

Only 14 percent, by the way, were willing to continue to add to the Federal debt to pay for our operations overseas and our operations in the gulf coast with respect to recovery from Katrina and Rita.

My concern is that the time we can come up and automatically fill all the needs of our military forces in Iraq through supplementals may be drawing to a close. It will be increasingly more difficult to move these supplemental bills to fully pay for our forces as the American public begins to be more and more concerned with both the deficit and the unexpected increasing costs of contingencies and the cost of our operations overseas.

I believe, if this happens, there is a real potential for both the Army and Marine Corps to be caught short having troops in the field which they must pay, equip, train, support, and also their families at home, but yet being squeezed because supplemental funding will not be sufficient. That will require them to look within their own budget to cut programs, to cut training, to cut modernization, which is very critical not only to their present posture but also to their future posture as the world's most formidable land force.

If these supplementals can't resolve the personnel costs of additional troops, the Army will have to look for $3.5 billion within their budget, and the Marine Corps would have to look at $400 million.

These are significant numbers for these services.

This could put excruciating pressure upon our military forces that are already under excruciating pressure, and we can see that reflected in many different dimensions.

Recently, we read about the recruiting shortfall. I believe Secretary Harvey of the Army announced today that they are going to increase the category of enlistees they would accept that do not meet the previous standards that were being used or increase the lower category of enlistees.

That is a reflection of the difficulty we have to man the force, at least at the recruitment level. Retention is good. But once again, if this pattern of operations persists for several years, and we see soldiers who have served with magnificent valor and dedication to the country faced with a third or fourth deployment into Iraq or into Afghanistan, those pressures will build.

I believe very strongly that not only should we follow the lead in the Appropriations Committee by formally increasing the end strength, but that we should begin to think seriously about and in fact begin to pay for these forces through the regular account.

My amendment moves the appropriate amount of money from the Army and Marine Corps personnel and operations and maintenance accounts included in the bridge supplemental, and moves them to the Army and Marine Corps personnel and operations and maintenance accounts in the underlying bill. The funding move will, I hope, ensure several things. First, it will be much more honest about how we are paying for our operations overseas with respect to the Army and Marines Corps. Secondly, it will enable us to better ensure that these funds will be available if, in fact, it becomes more difficult in terms of both the fiscal climate and the overall opinion climate in the country to send up on a regular basis very substantial supplemental appropriations bills for our consideration.

I think we should do it today. I urge my colleagues to support this measure. I thank my colleague, Senator Hagel, for joining me in this effort.

I yield the floor.

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