Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Air Force Strategic Initiatives

Statement

Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Air Force Strategic Initiatives

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REP. KATHY CASTOR (D-FL): Good morning, gentlemen.

Across all -- all of the services, the -- all service members, men and women, are struggling now. Here we are in the fifth year of the war in Iraq, well into the fifth year, and service men and women are struggling with very lengthy war zone rotations, worn out equipment. We have a growing discipline problem, and sometimes disjointed medical care when they return as wounded, injured veterans.

And then for the Air Force we add on top of that the challenges of the in lieu of assignments, where members of the Air Force are assigned to tasks and missions that are outside their -- their training.

And I think you testified we're now up to six -- well over 6,000, is that right?

GEN. MOSELEY: Sixty-one hundred today.

REP. CASTOR: Sixty-one hundred. And that trend has just continued to increase over the past years. And do you see any sign of that changing?

GEN. MOSELEY: Ma'am, there's actually 15,000 because you have people in training and in the pipeline. But you've got 6,100 deployed. And I'll say the Air Force is part of a joint team, and if there's a requirement for us to participate, we'll do that.

REP. CASTOR: And I understand, and I hear that from folks that serve in the Air Force, that they are proud to do that. But it comes at a cost, and I've heard estimates that it is costing us three times the amount of money that it does. Is that an accurate assessment?

GEN. MOSELEY: Ma'am, I don't know where that calculation came from. I'd have to take that for the record and see--

REP. CASTOR: This was from a four star general in the Air Force recently.

GEN. MOSELEY: I probably know him if you've got his name there.

REP. CASTOR: I do. I do. He said it costs as much as three times when you consider the training, preparation, recertification for airmen being sent downrange, so those just returned home and those preparing to deploy.

GEN. MOSELEY: Let me get the facts for you, ma'am.

REP. CASTOR: Because I'd like to know if we can quantify that in dollars a little bit more, if it costs three times more, what does that do?

And now back to the chairman's overriding concern, and you stated it, that you are also concerned as the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is as he enters his new assignment with the strategic risk in front of this country, because of the war in Iraq, and the way it -- the way it has played out.

I imagine you have been involved in significant discussions on how that affects your strategic missions. I know the defense bill contains a new direction to examine the roles and missions.

But what are the -- if we can get back to the chairman's point and point out to us the general -- how all of this informs you, and what your general direction will be for strategic roles and missions, and try to quantify it in dollars for us, but also, especially noting the strategic risks that confront this country.

SEC. WYNNE: Ma'am, I would offer first that the Air Force has been in combat out there for 17 years, since the deployment for Desert Shield-Desert Storm, the Air Force hasn't left the region. In fact we flew 12 years in the no-fly zones being shot at almost everyday, on top of Bosnia, Kosovo, then Afghanistan and Iraq. So our clock started in August of 1990 in the Middle East.

And so our deployment schedule and our rotation schedule has been changed over time to adapt to that high tempo.

We also understand that we will be there for a long time, because the attributes are there, and space power are the exact things that will be constant, once the land component has other challenges and perhaps become smaller. You will always have a requirement for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance. You will always have a requirement for lift, for combat search and rescue, for strike.

My prediction is, the Air Force with elements of the Navy and the Marines that fly also will be there probably for another decade. We're prepared to do that.

So the in-lieu of tasking is one of those things that we're having to work very hard to take care of our people to make sure they're actually trained to do the things we ask them to do. Our red lines are that we don't send anybody into one of these mission sets that is not their competency. So we train them inside, whether it's security forces or civil engineering or intelligence, to do the things that we're asking them to do.

But it's slightly different when you do it in this in-lieu of tasking than when they are assigned to an air expeditionary force. And that is the delta in training, and that may be where the price that you've referenced come from. I'll get those numbers for you.

REP. CASTOR: And how does it impact the growing global strategic risk? How does that focus in the CENTCOM area affect what we need to be doing around the world?

SEC. WYNNE: As we have been preparing for this conference, as well as over time, we've been assembling statistics that basically show we have a steady erosion in the operational readiness of our force structure.

Recently -- excuse me -- recently we've had the summary version in our statistics for retention and for -- for recruiting. We worry.

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