Hearing of the Readiness and Mangement Support Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee-Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2005

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: MILITARY READINESS PROGRAMS IN THE DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN ENSIGN (R-NV)

LOCATION: 232A RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

GENERAL GEORGE W. CASEY, JR., USA, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES ARMY;

ADMIRAL MICHAEL G. MULLEN, USN, VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES NAVY;

GENERAL T. MICHAEL MOSELEY, USAF, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE;

LIEUTENANT GENERAL JAN C. HULY, USMC, DEPUTY COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS, PLANS, POLICIES, AND OPERATIONS

BODY:
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I also want to take up on Senator Nelson's line of questioning with maybe a little different twist and talk about the impact of budgets on readiness on deferred acquisitions and deferred maintenance and ask you to comment on what seems to me to be a true proposition. But I'd be interested in your comments and that is a significant amount of what are-the Department of Defense budget today is seeking to do to make up for lack of funding that the military, the Department of Defense received in the '90s.

I know there have been various proposals over time to phase out-one I'm familiar with-two Army light divisions back in middle of 1995, on top of some significant budget cuts to the Department of Defense. My question really relates to more recent events and that is, a number of us are concerned, of course, with the deficit but we also realize we're a nation at war and I want to make sure, and ultimately, I think, the Senate will make sure that the commander in chief's budget request for the Defense Department is met. But we are having difficulty addressing that this week, as we debate the budget resolution.

But can you just comment-perhaps starting with General Casey and then coming down the line-about, if you do not receive-if the Department of Defense doesn't receive what the president has requested in terms of funding for the Department of Defense, what that means in terms of your readiness, the need to defer acquisitions or possibly even defer maintenance?

General Casey, could you address that for us, please?

GEN. CASEY: Yes, sir. Thank you very much. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have over 300,000 soldiers deployed worldwide, about 165,000 of those on unaccompanied short tours, primarily in the CENTCOM AOR. And so our readiness challenges are really resetting the folks that come back, preparing the next rotation to go and that is about 45 percent done. And then, going on with our continued recapitalization plans to ensure that we build readiness for the future as well as just the present, we have laid that up further precisely. It's not fully funded in all of the areas. So, if we don't meet the president's budget, I think our ability to provide training ready forces to combatant commanders for these ongoing missions can't help to be affected.

SEN. CORNYN: I might just supplement my question for Admiral Mullen and I know that the proposed budget resolution calls for-projects a $30 million supplemental request but that obviously isn't built into the baseline or intended to be but just for current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does the projected supplemental request address your needs or is that better met, more appropriately met, in your view, by your annual budget request?

ADM. MULLEN: Senator, as far as we're able to anticipate the '05 needs, and that both the size of it and the (eaches ?) of it, are important unknown to this point but from my point of view, this administration has treated us exceptionally well with respect to the supplemental requirements that come on top of the anticipated needs. In the case of the Navy, there is an awful lot of deployment capability that resides within the normal budget. So I talk to-the impact of a reduction even this year in accounts like the readiness accounts, we took an awful lot of risk in setting up our readiness account this year. We're really trying to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to more efficiently execute those accounts and understand them better and that's been a real priority for Admiral Clark.

now have this new surge construct. I talked about the Fleet Response Plan which gets us-and we're pretty close to there to fix available shortly with two follow-on carrier battle groups, carrier striking groups. If we took a big whack out of those accounts, we could go to four two or two zero very quickly, in terms of available resources, available combat resources to meet the need. And what that-from an operational commander standpoint is while we are focused heavily in Iraq, in that part of the world right now, there are other parts of the world where the president could choose options that would include those resources that we might very well be short of based on the kind of decrement that was laid on us if what you postulate as possible occurred.

SEN. CORNYN: General Moseley, would you care to comment?

GEN. MOSELEY: Senator Cornyn, let me agree with my two colleagues and add a bit of an Air Force perspective to that. At the peak of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we had eight equivalents of our 10 air expeditionary forces deployed. We now have three deployed. We've come down from eight to three but our steady state requirement-our steady state desire is for two. So we're still stressing the system while we're seeking to reconstitute and recapitalize.

We're working the challenges of resetting the people which gets us to the training, which gets to the munitions, the training munitions. It also gets us to the notion of refitting the vehicles, things like fuel bladders and tents, our expeditionary combat support, et cetera. We're still in the business of reconstituting. And some of that, I mentioned in my opening statement, will even take us out to '07. So any serious degrade in the budget that allows us to reconstitute and recapitalize would have impacts on us.

SEN. CORNYN: General Huly.

GEN. HULY: Yes, sir. We require an Active Component of about 175,000 Active Duty Marines. Today, about 50,000 of them are forward deployed and that includes about 5,000 Reservists, give or take a couple of hundred one way or the other. Our annual budget peacetime is about $16 billion. We have not compiled all the costs for Operation Iraqi Freedom and where we are with Iraqi Freedom 2 right now. But probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about $2.5 billion is what that will cost us per year. That does not include such unforeseen contingencies about Haiti or other events like that.

That is the importance of that supplemental will pay for that $2.5 billion additional price tag that we weren't expecting. If we didn't get that, which is the crux of your question, what would that affect? It would affect our procurement of the replacements for the aging aircraft, the weapons systems, the communications that we need to continue to invest in to keep ourselves modern on the battlefield, the training and the quality of life initiatives. We would be just barely-we would be making our investment in operations and maintenance to sustain that.

SEN. CORNYN: Mr. Chairman, if you would permit me a concluding question, let me ask General Casey to comment on this. Last year, Congress passed an $87 billion supplemental. It included funds for force protection items like up-armored Humvees, advanced body armor. Can you give me-can you give the subcommittee an idea what this funding has meant in terms of the safety of our troops, in terms of providing the resources that our troops have needed in order to accomplish the objectives that the commander-in-chief has asked of you?

GEN. CASEY: Senator, I can and it has enabled us to significantly increase the protection for our soldiers throughout the theater of Afghanistan and Iraq.

SEN. CORNYN: And is it true that that came in the nature of improved armor Humvees, body armor protection, things as basic as that?

GEN. CASEY: Absolutely, Senator. In fact, I think it's been reported in the hearings over the last week or so that there is sufficient body armor with these special armed protection plates in the theater now to equip every soldier. There's some distribution to Afghanistan. They fell out at about a thousand but everybody in Iraq has the body armor with the Sappy plates in it and every soldier crossing the border in this new rotation will cross the border wearing the Sappy plates, the complete outfit.

With respect to the up-armored Humvees, we started off last November with a requirement of about 3500 or 3600. The requirement's up to 4500. We have over 2100 hard Humvees in theater. We're also, with the money that you've provided, actively pursuing armored kits and our intent is to provide armored kits for 8400 Humvees and we expect to have those kits available by August.

SEN. CORNYN: And finally, is it fair to conclude, if Congress had not stepped up and funded this $87 billion supplemental, that it would have meant or resulted in increased casualties on the battlefield, as a result of a failure to provide those up-armored Humvees and body armor?

GEN. CASEY: Either that, Senator, or we would have to gut the Army budget to find the money to do this. We're committed to making sure our soldiers have the right equipment.

SEN. CORNYN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, sir.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

SEN. CORNYN: I know I am taking some risk asking questions after that but I certainly concur. But I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the Base Realignment and Closing Commission. I know the vice chairs play a key role in that process. Of course, the secretary came out with some guidelines in December, held those up for public comment and, of course, we've know for a long time that joint warfighting capability is key to our military in this new kind of environment that we are in. But of course, the guidelines were pretty bare bones and I know we'll put some meat on them as time goes by.

But I'd just like to hear from each of you, gentlemen, who are the key players in this process, as far as you're concerned, what is your definition or what do you believe the appropriate approach to joint warfighting training and readiness? What does that mean, from your standpoint? Starting with General Casey.

GEN. CASEY: Senator, I have been told, since I came in the Army as lieutenant, that you have to train the way you fight and it's clear, to all of us at this table and our bosses, specially after watching what happened in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom, that we are going to fight jointly when we fight in support of this nation. And so, we are working initiatives with each of the services here to improve our ability to schedule our training together, to ensure that the right pieces of our force are supporting Air Force training and vice versa.

We also, as part of the BRAC process is in the building, are working very closely to ensure that we are leveraging all of the joint bases for all of the services. And we are all a part of the BRAC leadership in the building here, as you mentioned.

SEN. CORNYN: Admiral Mullen.

ADM. MULLEN: Sir, it is with-as we have been going through this over many months now and will for the foreseeable future for the rest of this year, certainly it is dominantly a joint perspective and that is very significantly a guiding principle for us. The criteria to which you referred, I think, were the recently published for comment Military Value Criteria and, as I have immersed myself in this process, over the last several months, I recognize the responsibilities I have this year, there is not one that's more significant in terms of making sure it comes out right.

I see it, at this point, as an extremely fair way to go. I recognize that it is challenging for lots of reasons. In the end, we want the best military capability and I would say joint military capability to be the result of what the outcome of this is. I have felt for many years that it's heroic-it has been heroic on the part of Congress to set this commission up, this process up and, from what I have seen so far, it's a very fair process.

There is a lot of data. This is going to be a data intense, very well analyzed process from what I can tell so far.

I also am convinced that we do have some excess capacity that we are paying for, between 20 and 25 percent, and that that is costing us resources that we could better well spend on the kinds of capabilities that we're talking about today that we need for the future.

SEN. CORNYN: General Moseley.

GEN. MOSELEY: Senator Cornyn, let me add to my joint colleagues that I echo the notion of joint training is absolutely required. I would also add to that joint rehearsals are absolutely required, which takes you to the notion of having the ranges configured properly and having the ability to get on the range into lay-out scenarios, a lot like we did prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom in the ranges out in Nevada that Chairman Ensign is familiar with. We went out multiple times with the joint team and set the conditions out there to rehearse exactly what we were looking at relative to specific mission areas. Those ranges were very critical and the ability to do that is essential to a commander.

But I would also say the ability to do home station training, the blocking and tackling prior to being able to go do the serious joint training is also a fundamental requirement. Whether those are artillery ranges, whether those are rifle ranges, whether those are just vehicle operating areas or for the Navy to be able to steam and to sail, that blocking and tackling that leads up to those fundamental joint excursions, rehearsals and training are absolutely essential to us. We have to find ways to better set those conditions and we have to find ways to better train.

SEN. CORNYN: General Huly.

GEN. HULY: Sir, we have just completed the most significant operational joint evolution that the Armed Forces of the United States have ever gone through. Having said that, we were very successful but there is still room for improvement. Those improvements will be made on the training fields and those training fields will not only give us the opportunity to train as we fight, as General Casey said, but it will also point out where we need to improve on the development of our joint equipment and our joint processes of doctrine and coming up with how we are going to-our tactics and techniques and procedures of the future.

We need the opportunity to do that and that is on the bases that are becoming more and more limited. Now I recognize that there is probably some excess capacity out there. We, in the Marine Corps, certainly support, ardently support the BRAC process. We don't have anything to contribute at this time to that process. But we look fondly at how the other services are doing and the opportunities that will still be out there for us to train with them on their installations as well as ours.

SEN. CORNYN: Well, in closing, let me just say I want to commend each of you the wide open spaces of Texas. (Laughter.) It's a great place to train. Wonderful quality of life for our military and not as many problems as other places with encroachment of populations. So with that, I'll stop the commercial, Mr. Chairman, and turn it back to you.