Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act, 2004-Continued

EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN SECURITY AND RECONSTRUCTION ACT, 2004—CONTINUED

AMENDMENT NO. 1834

(Purpose: To increase the end strength of the Army and to structure the additional forces for constabulary duty)

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I offer this amendment with Senator Hagel of Nebraska. It would increase the end strength of our Army so we can deal with the increasing turbulence throughout the world that we have been confronting since 9/11—indeed before then.

Our military forces are without equal. They combine superb technology with bravery and devotion to the Nation. They are well led, particularly by extraordinary noncommissioned officers and junior officers. These qualities extend to both Active and Reserve components. History has never seen such a formidable force. However, history is replete with examples of superb military forces worn down because they were overextended.

Today, that danger is approaching our Army as it copes with worldwide commitments and the difficult challenge of a violent insurgency in Iraq and a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This chart depicts the deployment of soldiers. There are 325,000 soldiers in 120 countries. In Iraq, there are about 120,000; in Kuwait, about 22,000; in Afghanistan, approximately 11,000. They are all across the globe performing missions that are important to us and our national security and our safety. This situation of an extended Army has been developing over many years. Since 1989, the Army's military end strength has been cut by more than 34 percent and civilian strength by 45 percent, while undergoing a 300-percent increase in mission rate. Fewer people, more demand. That has been the record since 1989 and before that even.

This operational tempo certainly became acute after September 11 and the commencement of the global war on terrorism. A respected voice who devoted his life to serving the nation, GEN Frederick Kroesen, wrote in November 2002, before the initiation of operations in Iraq:

It appears to this interested observer that we are expending the force and doing little to ensure its viability in the years to come, years we have been assured it will take to win the war on terrorism. The quality of our effort, high and commendable during the first year and showing no signs of deterioration, can in the long run only be sustained by preparing now for the force we will need then. Barring the unlikely scenario of an all-out war and full mobilization, soldiers now fighting the war on terrorism, with few exceptions, will not be available for fighting two years from now. Units and organizations of the reserve components, mobilized for the first year of war, will not be available for more of the same service off into the indefinite future. It might be prudent now to ask the managers who decreed the current second-year Reservists' extensions what they plan for the third year.

The answer, of course, is to increase the size of the Army. On September 10, 2001, the Army was too small for the missions with which it was charged—a fact reported by both the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army in congressional testimony of that year.

On September 11, Army mission requirements grew significantly; the Army did not. It instead begins the expending of it and establishes the need to begin planning for the replacement of that which is being used up.

General Kroesen, a distinguished soldier, commanded the 82nd Airborne Division when I served as a young lieutenant. His insights are both profound and to me compelling.

Again, these words from General Kroesen were written before Operation Iraqi Freedom and before we found ourselves in a prolonged and costly effort to defeat an insurgency and rebuild a nation. The added stress of Iraq has made the acute absolutely critical.

James Kitfield of the National Journal wrote an insightful analysis of the stresses affecting the Army. He points out how this breakneck operational tempo is imposing great burdens throughout the Army. In his words:

To understand why, shift the focus from individual soldiers to major units such as the 82nd Airborne Division.
Traditionally America's quick reaction division, the 82nd currently has a brigade in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. The 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne, however, is the one that most concerns Army planners. After leaving Afghanistan earlier this year, the 3rd Brigade was home only about 6 months before being sent to help relieve the 3rd Infantry Division.

Then there is the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. Having returned recently from Germany from an extended peacekeeping deployment in the Balkans, the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade are becoming reacquainted with their families and relearning the kinds of high-intensity combat skills the Army put to such impressive use during the Iraq war. That training cycle itself requires weeks away from home. The 1st Infantry soldiers will not have much time before turning their focus to deployment preparations, however, because the 3rd Brigade is heading to Iraq next March to relieve elements of the 4th Infantry Division.

What we are seeing every day is an increasing cycle of deployment and redeployment of brigades and divisions being
shuffled about to cover all of these tremendous worldwide domains. This tempo and this stress is beginning to show in terms of our soldiers and in terms of the Army. Unless we provide additional soldiers for the Army, these stresses will be manifested in growing problems, such as difficulties in recruitment and retention and difficulties in adequately and thoroughly training the force.

The Army has begun to cancel or postpone many exercises and training rotations. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that since October 1, 2002, the Pentagon has canceled or postponed 49 of the 182 training exercises scheduled for this fiscal year.

The superb force that entered Iraq was forged through intensive training. Without such training, we will lose the edge in a world where there are other potential adversaries, such as North Korea whose army is more tenacious than the Iraqis under Saddam.

The effects on recruitment and retention are likely to be seen first in the National Guard and Reserves. Indeed, unless we add more active component soldiers, we will continue to rely on the National Guard and Reserves to fill the gaps. Such a policy is unsustainable over an extended period.

National Guard men and women and Reserve forces are dedicated patriots and skilled professionals, but they have lives outside the Army. If we continually force them to choose between service to the Nation and supporting their families, they will ultimately and invariably choose their families.

Moreover, the stresses on the Guard and Reserves are not localized in a few communities. These stresses are transmitted to every corner of the country, and we will have great difficulty maintaining public support for an extended operation in Iraq if the public sees that operation through the prism of neighbors repeatedly called to service and sacrifice without relief.

There has been much discussion about the adequacy of our force structure in Iraq, and I have become increasingly skeptical of the adequacy of the force structure in Iraq. You just have to pick up today's New York Times where there is an article that describes the fact that there is approximately 1 million tons of ammunition in Iraq, much of it unsecured because, frankly, we don't have enough troops there. We don't have enough American troops. We have not received our international reinforcements, and we have not yet effectively trained and deployed Iraqi troops.

What is also frightening is the fact that apparently the Saddam Hussein regime stockpiled at least 5,000 shoulder-fired missiles, air defense missiles, capable of bringing down aircraft. Only about a third of these missiles are accounted for.
There is the alarming possibility, because we are unable to secure these ammo dumps, that literally thousands of shoulder-fired air defense missiles are in Iraq or, even more alarming, have filtered outside the country to terrorist groups. So there is increasing evidence that the forces we have on the ground are not doing an essential job, which is to protect themselves from munitions going into the hands of terrorists and being used against our troops.

Regardless of how one feels about the number of troops in Iraq, we simply will not be able to maintain even that level unless we increase the end strength of our Army. Increased reliance on Guard and Reserves is not a sensible long-term strategy, and the arrival of international reinforcements is problematic. The Army is trying to squeeze more boots on the ground from its current forces, but this improvisation is a quick fix, not a long-term solution.

This amendment would authorize and would pay for an increase in the active duty Army end strength by 10,000 personnel and would focus on forces needed for constabulary duty, such as military police, civil affairs, light infantry, and special operations.

The objective of end strength, meaning the number of personnel permitted to serve in the military, was succinctly summed up by retired GEN Gordon R. Sullivan:

The objective is to have enough soldiers to execute Army missions at the right time and the right place, have enough in the total to have both tactical and operations flexibility and to have adequate depth in numbers to support leader development, required force structure manning and the requisite balance needed across the ranks.

Indeed, the current numbers are not giving the flexibility and the redundancy we should have built in to our military.
Each year in the Defense authorization bill, Congress authorizes the end strength of each branch of the military service.
There is a separate end strength number for the Active and Reserve component, which includes the National Guard.
Presently, the authorized active duty end strength for the Army is 480,000. The authorized end strength for the Army National Guard is 350,000, and the authorized end strength for the Army Reserve is 205,000.

In addition, there is a variance, which means the Secretary of Defense is authorized to exceed the active duty end strength by 3 percent when necessary, and the Guard and Reserve end strength by 2 percent.

I would argue that the present authorized end strength today, even with the allowed variance, does not provide enough Army personnel to provide the depth, the flexibility, and the balance it needs to carry out the missions of today and the future. This Army is stretched across the globe. The demands increase and the number of soldiers who are available is not able to give that needed flexibility, that adaptability, and that balance.

Five years ago in the Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1999, Congress lowered the authorized active duty end strength from 495,000 to its present 480,000. So there were at least 15,000 more soldiers several years ago before the war on terror, before the war in Iraq, before contingencies that have yet to present themselves to us.

Soon after that, however, the discussions began when we lowered this end strength, focusing on the inadequacies of the number of people we had. During a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee in July 2001—again, before September 11—General Shinseki stated:

Given today's mission profile, the Army is too small for the mission load it is carrying.

At that time, both General Shinseki and Secretary White requested that end strength be increased to 520,000. Again, that was before 9/11 and before Iraq.

Since 2001, the Association of the United States Army has been advocating for increasing end strength by 30,000 to 40,000 additional soldiers. Again, my amendment would only call for a 10,000 increase in the number of soldiers.

However, despite the views of these professionals, end strength has not been increased. Yet none of the Army's missions from 2000 have ended, and with the advent of September 11, the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq, the burden has increased exponentially.

Today, as this chart shows, the Army has 325,200 soldiers deployed and forward stationed in 120 countries. While some of these deployment numbers may vary in the future, there will not be any significant changes. No one, I think, reasonably expects that we will be withdrawing within a year or two a major force from Iraq or forces from Afghanistan or forces from even Kosovo, Bosnia, and Hungary. These commitments are there, and they must be met.

Retired LTG Jay Garner, the first director of Iraqi reconstruction, told the National Journal that the active duty Army "has already been burned out" by trying to do too much with too few, and the "reserves are going to be burned out" by repeated activations.

General Garner argues that the Army needs to expand by two light infantry divisions, about 20,000.

The U.S. Army's Center of Military History has looked at the numbers and experiences of forces needed to remain in country after the conventional battle has ended—occupation forces, in other words. The center notes that you can look at historical examples, but you must also consider contemporary analyses and current capabilities.

With this three-pronged analysis, the Army's Center of Military History posited that if "we and our allies were to directly and effectively steer the course of events," 300,000 troops would be required in Afghanistan for a generation and 100,000 troops would be needed in Iraq for a number of years," assuming a modernized society and robust infrastructure. Without these numbers of military personnel, we may have influence but not control.

I think we are seeing today in Iraq that we have influence and not control, certainly not in Baghdad. We have influence in Afghanistan, but not control. It is important to note that providing insufficient troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq not only has consequences now but well into the future.

Today, the Army presently has 501,000 soldiers serving on active duty. Not only is this above the authorized end strength of 480,000, but it is also above the 3 percent variance rate. Indeed, the Army is so stretched at the moment, they are actually breaking the law on end strength. Isn't that enough evidence to suggest we need to raise the level?

I also note that even when the Army is well over the authorized end strength, they are having an extraordinarily difficult time implementing a rotation policy for Iraq and other areas around the globe. This means that tours are being extended.
More Guard and Reserve forces are being called up and our soldiers are getting tired by the daily stress they are enduring and frustrated by the lack of certainty of when they may return home.

Currently more than 130,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers are deployed. Approximately 29,000 National Guard soldiers, infantry, signal transportation, military police are serving in Iraq and Kuwait. Among those are the 115th and 119th military police companies from Rhode Island, and the 118th military police battalion from Rhode Island. They are doing a magnificent job, but they are feeling the stress of this deployment.

More than 10,000 Reserve soldiers are in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. At this time, there are still requirements for National Guard soldiers in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Sinai. In fact, the National Guard has taken command relationships in these countries—Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Sinai. This is a development that I think many National Guard soldiers did not anticipate when they joined the Guard several years ago, certainly if they joined the Guard 10 or 15 years ago.

Since September 11, the Guard has mobilized 210,000 of its 350,000 soldiers at one time or another. The Reserve has mobilized 85,000 of its 205,000 in that same time period.

In addition, the activation of the Reserve component has a different effect than the deployment of an active-duty soldier.
For active-duty personnel, the military is their primary employer and their families are prepared for the sacrifices required when their loved one is absent from home for a long period of time performing dangerous duty. With reservists, it is a different story. While slightly more than 50 percent of the active-component Army is married, 74 percent of reservists have at least 1 dependent. About one-half of these soldiers work for employers with 1,000 or fewer employees and 15 percent work for companies with less than 50 employees, where their absence is sorely felt.

While these soldiers are fighting for our country for at least a year, employers are understaffed and spouses are struggling as single parents, often under financial duress, since some soldiers take a pay cut when they give up their civilian salary for an Army wage.

Goldman Sachs recently conducted a survey of Reserve component soldiers and their employers and found these disturbing results: Virtually all the reservists felt that the activation was having a less than favorable impact on their civilian careers.
Nearly one-third of the reservists were not sure their jobs would be waiting for them when they came off active duty, and half believed there would be a negative effect on pay and promotion.

Indeed, there is a dire need to expand the number of active-duty military personnel to avoid a future crisis in recruitment and retention in the military, specifically in the Reserve and National Guard units. With numbers like this reported by the Goldman Sachs survey, with the stress of a year deployment, with the additional burdens on spouses and children, I believe when these National Guards men and women and reservists return home the likelihood they would eagerly extend their careers in the Guard and Reserve is diminished significantly. Our soldiers need a break. They deserve better. We can help them and we should.

Now some may oppose this amendment by stating that senior officials from the administration and the Army have repeatedly stated that if they needed more troops they would ask for them, and they do not need more troops. I argue the administration is ignoring the facts I have just cited, and the simple and the obvious point that our Army is overworked and the work continues.

I think they are ignoring these facts for several reasons. First, increasing end strength admits that we need more troops to create a reasonable rotation policy, which means we are going to be in Iraq for a long time. The only other country where we have a one-year rotation policy for troops is Korea, where we have been ensconced now for almost 50 years. This administration simply must admit that a U.S. military presence in Iraq will be necessary for a very long time. Last Saturday's edition of the Washington Post quotes GEN Jim Jones, the U.S. European commander and NATO supreme allied commander, as saying U.S. soldiers may pull out of Bosnia in 2004—may. That is 8 years after they went in and were also going to stay for just 1 year. I argue that Iraq is likely a more difficult undertaking than Bosnia. Also, the only reason the U.S. is able to leave Bosnia is because troops from other nations are remaining, a luxury we unfortunately do not have in Iraq today.

Once again, the United States Army Center of Military History has noted: Occupations have required not only manpower but also time to achieve success. In the Philippines, for example, the officers and NCOs of the Philippine constabulary were virtually all continental Americans in 1902. Yet, by 1935, 30 years later, everyone was a Filipino. The Philippines was a challenging proposition with respect to both manpower and time, and it took a generation to achieve a satisfactory outcome. Germany and Japan transitioned from being occupied to being allies in about a decade.

So looking at history, challenging countries take at least a generation to stabilize, less demanding countries perhaps a decade.
We are in Iraq for at least 10 years, and we have to have a force structure that will support that deployment. The Army must grow so they can rotate troops and avoid sending the units again and again to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second reason the administration is reluctant to increase end strength is that as the New York Times noted in July,

.    .    .    the concept on increasing troop numbers and its costs contradicts a basic tenet of Secretary Rumsfeld's goal for military transformation, which is to rely on new technology and rewrite doctrine to allow smaller forces to attack with greater speed and deadliness.

I argue that Secretary Rumsfeld was able to test his theories of transformation during the period of conventional war in Iraq, and they were a success. But he risks losing that victory by refusing to see a war of this sort also requires nation building, and nation building requires many more boots on the ground to ensure security and stability.

Retired LTG Walter Ulmer—and General Ulmer was one of the key leaders in the Army who analyzed and predicted the hollow Army of the 1970s—stated recently:

One of the lessons we learned in the past, and we're relearning in dramatic fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the U.S. military may be able to fight a war with slim forces, but it takes a lot more troops to secure an unruly nation with many diverse interest groups and antagonists.

Ulmer argues the Army is short 40,000 to 50,000 troops. He said:

The Army is a very elastic institution with a can-do culture, and that's a wonderful attribute, but it is not infinitely elastic and its can-do ethos makes it possible for the Army to practically respond itself to death.

Another senior Army official stated:

Essentially, we fought a just-in-time war. A unit would arrive, get a bullet, the enemy would pop his head up and we'd fire the bullet. That puts a lot of stress on a commander who is simultaneously trying to execute the forward battle, carefully balance his resources, pull a company from here to plug a gap over there, all the while looking back over his shoulder at very exposed logistical lines.

He asked:

Why fight a war like that when we could have deployed overwhelming combat forces in a way that would reduce risks and possibly protect lives? We've also seen in Iraq that while lean forces can be successful in combat by focusing on an enemy's finite centers of gravity, in [postwar] stability operations, there are no decisive centers of gravity. You have to spread your forces throughout each city, and that takes more of them.

If we accept the need to increase the size of the Active Duty Army, we need to then focus on what types of forces would be most beneficial. The U.S. Army is the best in the world when it comes to skills and equipment needed to win on the battlefield, but the conventional battle in Iraq is over. Now I argue we need an occupation force, those who must remain to accomplish the U.S. objective once the conventional battle is finished. These forces must have different skills because they have different missions: defending against an insurgency, enforcing law and order, providing humanitarian relief, and reconstruction of infrastructure. They need the skills required for nation building.

So my amendment directs that the Army should seek 10,000 soldiers who have the skills that are the highest demand in Iraq: military police, special forces, civil affairs officers, and light infantry. These forces travel lighter, so they are less expensive to transport and maintain. These forces will provide maximum effectiveness at minimal cost.

In January, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, released a report called "A Wiser Peace: An Action Strategy For Post-Conflict Iraq." The first recommendation in the report is to:

    .    .    . create a transitional security force that is effectively prepared, mandated and able to handle post-conflict security needs.

The report states that:

The United States must immediately identify and train a core force of U.S. military troops to perform constabulary duties in Iraq. Working with its coalition partners, the U.S. must also identify and ready other constabulary forces—such as the Italian Carabinieri and French Gendarmerie—to assure their timely arrival in theater.

We have yet to see the arrival of the French Gendarmerie and the Italian Carabinieri. There are Italian forces that are assisting there, but the French have not yet arrived.

But the need the CSIS identified before the war ever began is clearly there, and the U.S. Army is struggling to meet it.
Presently, the Active-Duty Army has 19,432 authorized positions for military policemen and there are currently 22,476 MPs serving, well over authorized capacity. There are 22,608 Reserve slots for military police and they are presently at 95 percent capacity. Clearly, there is a need for more military police. This amendment assures we start meeting this need.

In addition, my amendment gives the Army the flexibility to either move Reserve slots to active duty or recruit new soldiers. I should make it clear that the positions move, not necessarily the people. No reservist can be forced to become an active-duty soldier.

Most of the Army's military police are in Reserve units—12,800 are in the Active Force while 22,800 are in the Reserves.
Most Civil Affairs Units, those soldiers who provide a link between the military and civilian population in an area of operations, are also in Reserves.

Clearly, there needs to be a redistribution, given the demands on today's Army. In addition, if the Army has the flexibility to move reservists and guardsmen into the Active Force, these soldiers will be ready for deployment much more quickly than new recruits.

The informal CBO cost of 10,000 additional soldiers is $409 million. That number includes military personnel and operational and maintenance costs of 10,000 additional troops for fiscal year 2004. I believe this is the most worthwhile expenditure.

This amendment offsets this cost with funding from the Iraqi Freedom Fund. As we all know, the Iraq Freedom Fund was established in the fiscal year 2003 supplemental we passed in March. At that time, $15 billion was set aside for Secretary Rumsfeld to use on emergency expenses for military personnel, operation and maintenance, procurement, or humanitarian assistance. Most of that funding has been expended. Therefore, an additional $1.9 billion for the Iraqi Freedom Fund is included in this supplemental for exigencies. I believe the exigency is here and we should pay for these troops now.

Many would argue that while the costs are $409 million the first year, these troops will have to continue to be maintained in future years, and the actual cradle-to-grave costs are much higher. I would counter that this cost is minimal compared to what it will take if, in just a short time—2 or 3 years—the U.S. Army does not have the fighting force it needs to perform its mission because we squandered its strength.

Let me show another chart, which again contrasts the Army in August of 2000, when some were criticizing it as being unprepared, and the Army in August of 2003.

There were 144,000 soldiers deployed in 2000; in 2003, about 370,000—over 370,000; 7 brigades in 2000, 30 brigades in 2003. No National Guard divisions deployed; 3 years later, 2 National Guard divisions deployed. In 2000, fewer than 25,000 National Guard and Reserve troops on active duty; today, 126,498 troops. This has an impact.

These are the scenarios that are used as a template to plan our military forces, the "two major theater wars" scenario: MTW east, Iraq; MTW west, hypothetically Korea. This is the required order of battle that has been devised after careful study: six divisions here and four divisions for MTW west. The units available in August of 2000, again at a time when our
Army was being criticized as not being up to the task of defending the Nation—six divisions and one armored cavalry regiment ready, four divisions at MTW west and one armored cavalry division. Today, only four divisions here for the east scenario and only three divisions here.

There is an impact in terms of our capability to do what we planned for decades to do. We have to ensure that our Army is ready for any mission, and we have to ensure it today.

In his farewell speech, when he was retiring as Army Chief of Staff, GEN Eric Shinseki said:

We must ensure the Army has the capabilities to match the strategic environment in which we operate, a force sized correctly to meet the strategy set forth in the documents that guide us. .    .    . beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army.

We are rapidly approaching a 12-division strategy with a 10-division Army.

Our Army is fighting on many fronts for us right now. They are doing a magnificent job, as well as the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard—all of our Defense Department personnel and related personnel. We are extraordinarily proud of them. But they are overtaxed, particularly so in the Army because of the nature of the Army. It is not only the combat arm of decision but also is the combat arm of duration. It is the Army that typically is charged with the aftermath of the battle as well as the battle.

We have to help them. My amendment will provide a modicum of relief. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

As a final point, ultimately we all respond, not just to our colleagues, not just to institutional pressures, but to our constituents. I would find it very difficult, this month or 6 months from now, to go back and to meet my neighbors, who are in the National Guard and the Reserve, and explain to them that we could not increase the size of our Army, that they are being deployed once again, after repeated deployments, because we couldn't find the way or the will to increase the size of our Army. I think we should. I think we must. And I hope we do.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Levin be added as a cosponsor of this amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.