News Conference with Senator Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel - Legislation to Expand the Size of the Army

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: NEWS CONFERENCE WITH SENATOR JACK REED (D-RI) AND SENATOR CHARLES HAGEL (R-NE)

RE: LEGISLATION TO EXPAND THE SIZE OF THE ARMY

LOCATION: THE CAPITOL, THE SENATE RADIO/TV GALLERY, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
SEN. REED: (In progress) -- to help rebalance the force and these troops would be paid for out of the FY 2004 supplemental.

Needless to say, I'm a little intrigued about this sudden change in the Army's position. I'm gratified that they ultimately came to support the view that Senator Hagel and I had and indeed increase from 10,000 to 30,000 the troops that are necessary.

I think our proposal last fall and the response this January by the Army and the Department of Defense recognizes that our forces are dangerously stretched thin across the globe. Now, many, many people have pointed this out. I was particularly struck by comments of Lieutenant General John Riggs, the director of the Objective Task Force of the Army, that was reported in the Baltimore Sun on January 21st. In General Riggs's words, "You probably are looking at substantially more than 10,000," referring to the troops that he thought would be necessary. "I have been in the Army 39 years. I have never seen the Army as stretched in that 39 years as I have today. It's not my intent to be provocative, but to be intellectually honest with my feelings on the strategy and commitment of the Army. To be honest, to be, I think, responsive to the reality on the ground, we do need these troops."

Today the Army presently has 492,242 soldiers serving on active duty. This means that on average, the Army needs 8,000 more soldiers each day to accomplish its mission than Congress has authorized and budgeted for, given the stress we've seen.

We know the situation in Iraq is uncertain. We know that going forward we will be committed there for many, many years, not just months. And I'm glad now that the Department of Defense recognizes the need for the troops. But what they still have not recognized is paying for these troops in a straightforward, candid fashion, so that the American public recognizes the costs associated with Iraq and Afghanistan, and we provide for these costs, not simply kick the can down the road for another day.

There's two possible ways to pay for these troops: one is the way that they've chosen and this unusual reliance upon the supplemental to pay for active troops you anticipate you will need for many years; or the way that we propose, which is to essentially put it into the Defense budget and find the funds within the budgetary process to pay for these troops.

I think it's important to do that. I think it's important to provide the consistency for planning that the Army needs. And I think it's important to provide the American public with a sense of the long-term nature of our commitment and the fact that we'll have to pay for this commitment.

Like so many people, I was surprised when there were no funds in the president's budget for Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm surprised still that there's not a supplemental coming to us sooner than sometime after the election. And I believe we can't afford for our long-term success to rely on these budgetary gimmicks; we have to put the money in the budget. And that's what we will do. I hope, in fact, that we'll get to a point where we can have a stable funding source in the budget for our military forces.

One final point before I turn it over to Senator Hagel. This is a chart that the Army provided which shows what they think is their best view of their end strength. Now, I would point out that we can see it climbing today. But it doesn't get back down to the present end strength under their conditions until FY '10 or FY '11. Now, that's about seven years from now. This is not just a simple spike of a few months, this is a long, long build-up and a very, very slow build-down. It's going to require, frankly, some good luck overseas. And we can't assume we're going to have good luck; we have to plan for the worst case, not hope for the best case. That's another reason why I think we have to do it this way and do it promptly.

And now, let me introduce my colleague and friend, the senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Q I have a couple of questions, if I could. First of all, is the need that you see for increasing the Army's end strength purely a consequence of President Bush having decided to go to war in Iraq? Absent the war in Iraq, would there be any necessity to increase the size of the Army?

SEN. REED: Well, the operations in Iraq, in my view, are the significant factor in the need for additional troops, just in sheer numbers. We've got roughly 20,000 or so in Afghanistan. We've got 100-plus thousand in Iraq. We are committed to a long-term, multi- year process of reconstruction of a country, of an economy, of a democratic transformation. So that is the major factor, I believe, that is putting the stress right now on our land forces, particularly Army forces.

Q Senator Hagel, do you agree?

SEN. HAGEL: I would agree with what he said; just one additional point. I mean, we can debate, and surely we have, whether we should have gone into Iraq the way we did, whether we should not have gone into Iraq. And that will be played out, as it should. It's a legitimate policy issue that should be debated in this campaign. But the fact is, we are where we are. And there's not one of us up here who believes, that I'm aware of, that we had any option other than to win, to come out of this successfully, in --

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. HAGEL: Let me finish my point. And so, yes, we are where we are partly as a result of the commitments in Iraq. But the fact is we have made those commitments and we're going to have to comply with those commitments. And if that is the reality of the world we live in, with the great unknowns out there, then we're going to have to adjust the force structure.

Q Could I ask you to elaborate some on the manifestations of the stress that the force is under? How do you see the stress? What are the consequences, and particularly as it affects the Guard?

SEN. REED: I'll just start. I have two Military Police companies and a Military Police battalion in Iraq from the Rhode Island National Guard. They've done a magnificent job. And no one knows for sure what their reaction is going to be when they come back in about a month. But having deployed previously, about two years ago, to the Balkans, and now this second deployment, a very long, about 16-month, deployment, there is a feeling, at least, or an anticipation that some, if not many, of these soldiers will decide that they can't continue to serve.

I think that feeling will be accelerated if we don't increase the size of the end strength of the Army because they can do the math, too. If the Army stays this size they're going again and they're going very quickly.

I think we'll also-and General Abizaid was asked today about the impact on force retention and recruitment, and he expressed some concern. He was confident that we could weather this storm-he is more confident than I-but he expressed concern about retention of young officers, which is a key factor in any military force, and younger NCOs. So these are beginning to show some stress, and the --

Q Will increasing the size of the Army relieve the pressure on the --

SEN. REED: It will certainly relieve the pressure on the National Guard, both I think initially in terms of perception-perception as being there's a bigger active force, I'm not going to be called in six months to go-but also reality. Eventually the active force will be doing more.

Another point that we're looking at-we're trying to find data. It's hard sometimes to do this. One of the major sources of recruitment for the National Guard and reserves are regular soldiers who are leaving and will go into the Reserve/National Guard. I wonder now, if regular soldiers are leaving the active force right now, whether they'll go into the Reserve/National Guard simply because my presumption is they're leaving because they don't want to go back again into Iraq or Afghanistan or someplace else, and they won't join the Guard because they know they'll be headed that way.

SEN. HAGEL: The only thing I would say in addition to that, the recruitment/retention issue is an issue and it's going to become more of an issue, and not because I say it or Senator Reed says it, but we hear from people who we represent. We hear from their families. We hear from their employers. We hear from their communities. And we hear from them personally, and some are willing to go on the record with the press. When I was back in Nebraska over Christmas, I had two Reserve officers, captains, talk to the press about this.

But also one additional point: morale, morale of the troops. And morale is a very significant factor because morale directs everything. Morale directs not just the feeling of the nobleness of the purpose and the cause, but there's an alertness factor. You drift into a dullness that is very dangerous in combat or in what we're doing in nation building and peacekeeping around the world. And if you lose the morale of the troops, then you've lost something that's irreplaceable and is very difficult to get back.

And there's no question in my mind that this increase of force structure helps address this.

Is it the only answer? No.

It is-one last point I'd make. Remember, this is an all- voluntary force. We have never, ever been at war in the circumstances we are today with this kind of a force structure. When we've been at war, whether it's Vietnam or Korea, World War II, we essentially used a draft. This is a voluntary force structure. And when you listen to spouses and all the others that are thinking, as Senator Reed said, about the future and "what am I in for here," this all adds up.

And I think, as much as we can do up here-and we are somewhat limited-one of the things that we can do is help General Abizaid and General Schoomaker and the uniform military. They're going to be here long after the politicians have left, and they're going to be saddled with dealing with the transformation of a force structure and the requirements and the demands of keeping this nation secure.

Q In light of what's happened with the Pentagon adding 30,000 on a temporary basis, how has your plan been received so far with the Pentagon?

SEN. HAGEL: Jack's answer.

SEN. REED: Yeah. Yeah. (Laughter.) Not with a great deal of enthusiasm.

But again, I'm still amazed at-there is no funding in the president's budget for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the Pentagon continued to insist they can't calculate the costs they know already, supplemental costs. That's why they can't send the supplemental up. There seems to be every attempt to avoid the reality of coming forward and saying, "We need this much money, and we're going to have to put it in regular course of budgeting."

So I'm not surprised that they're a little bit unenthusiastic about our proposal, because everything they seem to be doing lately is to somehow try to minimize and disguise the cost of our operations.

And Chuck made the point very well. There's a lot of debate about why we're there. There should be no debate about staying there and winning. And at the heart of that debate is recognizing the cost and providing for those costs, not in supplementals that may or may not come down this year or next year, but in the regular order of budget processing. And that's what our point is.

Q How much trust do either you put in the ('011 ?) plan that says we'll need 582 -- in part of your making a permanent increase, it seems to me that you're expressing some doubt that that's where you end up with the size of the Army.

SEN. REED: Well, the size of the Army depends a lot upon the strategy that we're going to take, and also the threats that we face. At this juncture, the prudent policy is to increase the size of the force. And I think, you know, you have to also assume that we'll still have these involvements or these engagements around the world. I mean, it's-there's a disconnect, in my view, between the rhetoric about the threats we face and what the plans are. If this is a generational struggle against terrorism, then we're not going to have an Army that's back down to 482,000 in two or three years. If it's a generational struggle like the Cold War, that's a decade or more.

And as Senator Hagel points out, the Army and the Marines, but the Army principally, they're the boots on the ground. The high tech personnel-the high tech equipment, rather, can help a bit, but you need people. I mean, again, in the wake of this terrible tragedy this week in Karbala and Baghdad, the response is not to get more UAVs, it's we need more troops along the border, more security people, more people out protecting other people.

And so, my sense is that you have to plan, as I said, not for the best case, but for-probably for the most likely case, and, indeed, the worst case, and that would suggest that we're going to be there-need troops for a long time.

Chuck?

SEN. HAGEL: You cannot have a gap between mission and capability. That will be disastrous for everyone. And I think we are dangerously close to that gap becoming wider and deeper.

Now, your question about the specific numbers, I don't know, I'm not near wise enough to be able to tell you that this number, 513(,000) end strength, is the number. Maybe is 525,000. I don't know what it is. But I am convinced enough to have some appreciation based on experience and spending time on the issue up here, that we need more help. Obviously, Schoomaker believes that, or he wouldn't have come up and asked for 30,000 more, even-even though it was temporary. But it is impossible and imprecise to calculate. And it's very difficult for the Pentagon, for the military planners. We appreciate that. We especially appreciate the uniformed military's difficulty in dealing with this.

But Jack makes a very good point here. If we believe-and the president believes it, his war cabinet believes it, I think most in Congress believe it-that we are in for a long-term fight against terrorism and dealing with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, all the unknowns-failed states-then we must not allow a gap to exist between mission and capability.

The last point I'd make on Iraq. When you, say, over the last 24 hours get a sense of what's going on in Iraq, where you've got the paramilitaries that are not being disarmed-matter of fact, they're being enhanced. There are more of them-that is a very dangerous part of what's going on here, because the Iraqi people, or at least some of their leaders, do not believe the United States and our coalition partners are providing the kind of security required for Iraq to develop.

Now, we can't do it all. We understand that. But that's what I'm talking about when I say "the gap between mission and capability." And if we lose the Iraqi people's confidence in our ability to help secure that country long enough so that they have an opportunity to develop a government, govern themselves, protect themselves and develop an economy, then we'll have lost not only Iraq, but we'll have lost the Middle East for a long time. And I'm not sure that's all being factored in here.

And Iraq could turn into a Lebanon. I mean, it's taken Lebanon 20, 25 years to work through the paramilitaries. And we don't want it to get to that point. And that's another, more geopolitical dynamic of what we're talking about.

SEN. REED: I'll make just one final point, and that is-and it's more of a footnote-it's my observation that it's easier to bring the force down than it is to build it up. You save money doing that. Instead of using stop-loss orders, you can let people go early, if you have to, and they want to go. So this is the most prudent approach, which is to, you know, build it up to the point that it-as Senator Hagel says so precisely, that mission and capabilities are matched. And then if you find that the missions decline, it's a lot easier then to reduce the size of the force.

Yes, ma'am.

Q What about recruitment for specialized forces? General Abizaid has said-you know, noted the need for human intel and some of those other things, as opposed to just boots on the ground. Is any of this budgeting towards, you know, recruiting in those specific areas, or --

SEN. REED: This would authorize the military to retain or recruit anyone they think is necessary for the fight. There's no specification in this bill of types of people, types of units. This is an end strength. And within that end strength, they could decide they want more, translate it into more civil affairs officers, more engineers, whatever they like.

SEN. HAGEL: And by the way, that's intentional.

SEN. REED: Right.

SEN. HAGEL: We're not in the business to try to run the military. They know how to do that, and they know how to do it very well.

Q How would you pay for the 3.6 billion a year?

SEN. REED: Well, that requires us going in and making some hard choices within the Defense authorization bill and the budget. I can --

Q Is there any place to get it except procurements?

SEN. REED: I can offer some ideas, but I don't know if Senator Hagel-I think-we're spending a lot of money on missile defense, we're spending a lot of money on programs that, given the present climate and threat, and also given the present readiness of those programs for deployment, one might be able to find monies there.

We could find monies in other functions, I'm sure.

I would suggest-and I don't have to tell you all this-that my list would probably be much different than other people's lists. But it would be required to do this.

Now, one point I'd like to make very, very clear. It should not be the responsibility of the Army to find this money within their budget. Absolutely not. Because that is just-that is robbing Peter to pay Paul to the nth degree. This is a defense-wide problem. This is not-should not be confined to the Army. You should not tell the Army: "Okay, now you've got 30,000 extra troops, you find it, you take it away from your mess halls, from your day-care centers, from your training centers." That would be horrible. Unacceptable. So this has to be defense-wide.

Q (Off mike) -- defense problem or --

SEN. REED: I think it's a defense problem. And I must say, from what I've heard about the proposed budget that's coming out, with a suggestion that we cut defense, that complicates this. You know, again, this goes back to the point, having taken on this mission in Iraq, having taken on a mission in Afghanistan, we have to stand up and pay for it, pay for it all, and not try to disguise the costs by, you know, supplementals and special funds and things like that.

SEN. HAGEL: We have to be honest about it. And Jack said it; we're going to have to make some hard choices here and some tough decisions. And it's very unfair, and we should not do it in deferring all those tough decisions and being less than candid. But even more irresponsible is to load it on to the back of the military, to say, "Okay, we're going to charge you with all these responsibilities to protect our security. Then you're going to have to sort out a limited budget to do all these things we're telling you to do."

That's not leadership. That's not leadership coming from the White House, it's not leadership coming from the civilian leadership in the Defense Department, nor Congress. And we need to sort that out and be honest with the American people, and where we're going to need more resources, let's say it.

Last point I would make. Who always gets hurt at the bottom of this? It's the small guy. I went over to Vietnam in 1968 as a private. And the generals always salute and the admirals will salute the secretary and said, "Yes, sir, we can do it." And I'm not holding the generals or admirals accountable for not being responsible leaders, but who bears the brunt of it? It's the poor guy at the bottom that has to carry the rifle, that has no say in it. And I'll be damned if I'm going to be part of this Congress and allow that to happen during this war, during my watch, like we did to the people in Vietnam.

SEN. REED: Thank you, gentlemen, ladies.