National Public Radio Talk of the Nation - Transcript

National Public Radio (NPR)

SHOW: Talk of the Nation (2:00 PM ET) - NPR

HEADLINE: Troop levels in Iraq and the strength of America's armed forces

ANCHORS: NEAL CONAN

BODY:
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. We're discussing troop levels in Iraq and the strength of America's armed forces. If more troops are needed in Iraq, where will they come from? Is it time to expand the military? Our guest is General Mike Davidson, former assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

You're invited to join us, of course, (800) 989-8255. E-mail is totn@npr.org.

The issue of force levels comes before the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow. Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, is a member of the committee, ranking member on the subcommittee on personnel. He joins us from his home in Omaha.

And very nice of you to join us on TALK OF THE NATION today.

Senator BEN NELSON (Democrat, Nebraska): Well, my appreciation, Neal, for including me in what is obviously a very important discussion that will be ongoing for some time.

CONAN: Well, as you know, there are many now calling for more troops to stabilize the situation in Iraq. What's your view of this?

Sen. NELSON: Well, I think we can add more troops, but they can't get there immediately because there is a lag between now and the time that we would have troops ready to engage if it's new troops. So what we're going to have to do is continue to add troop strength from existing forces, and that is putting a great deal of pressure with rotation and deployments.

CONAN: If it is to be new troops, obviously as you mentioned this takes considerable time and certainly at no trivial expense.

Sen. NELSON: Well, it costs about a hundred thousand dollars to train and equip a new soldier, and if you do a little math here, to add the 30,000 that's being talked about would be about $3.6 billion to add to the budget of the Army. So it's very expensive to train new soldiers. It's more expensive to train them than it is to retain them, and that's why retention is so vitally important to the future of our military strength.

One of the things that I'm finding-and I've talked to a number of troops who just got back-reservists who just got back from Iraq last week, back in Nebraska-and I did Saturday night speak to them-and a number of them were not going to stay. They were not going to re-up. They were getting out. They couldn't afford to continue to work and be included in the Guard and Reserve units.

CONAN: And similarly that retention or re-enlistment issue, those are just as vital as for the active-duty troops, too.

Sen. NELSON: Oh, absolutely. There's no end of concerns right now about the multiple and lengthy deployments. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, we work very closely with the Pentagon to develop a schedule. And earlier this year and later of last year, they issued a schedule and they've pretty much stuck together on this for the past six months. But now because of the current events in Iraq, they're moving away from it and we're going to continue to see more problems by extending those terms.

One of the things that I found out from the troops and from the families is that they wanted some certainty. And now when they were in the midst of getting some certainty, now you've seen some extensions. So certainty doesn't seem to exist at the moment for families or for troops.

CONAN: Well, let's invite Senator John Cornyn to join us. He's a Republican from Texas, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He's with us by phone from his office here on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Senator Cornyn, good to speak with you again.

Senator JOHN CORNYN (Republican, Texas): Thank you very much. Good to be with you.

CONAN: So as you look at this issue of troop levels in Iraq and the broader issue of levels of American forces, particularly, I guess, in the Army, what are your thoughts going into tomorrow's hearing, Senator Cornyn?

Sen. CORNYN: Well, all along, Secretary Rumsfeld and the president said if the commanders on the ground, the combatant commanders, need the troops, we'll provide them. And that appears to be what is happening. This surge in violence recently that's concerned all of us, but which I believe we have much better in hand now than we did just a week or two ago, calls for a remedy. And I think the remedy that the secretary has announced, 20,000 new troops whose tour will be extended about three months, appears to be what they need and they're going to get it.

CONAN: Yet-I'm not sure you were able to be listening with us earlier-we had the wife of a reservist from Maine, Nancy Durst, whose husband tour has just now been extended a second time. This is a terrible situation for a lot of these families.

Sen. CORNYN: Well, God bless all the families who are making a tremendous commitment to our war on terror. And, of course, our sympathy goes out to those who are bearing the disproportionate hardship of this. But, of course, we need these troops, and indeed that's the purpose of Reserve forces and National Guard units, to supplement our active-duty military. But ultimately the answer-and it's not just an answer for today or this week or this month-is we need to get our force structure back in balance. We're not out of soldiers, we're out of balance. We've got more than two million men and women in uniform, and we should not be seeing this sort of pressure on the deployment of 135,000 in Iraq.

CONAN: Let's get a question in from a caller. This is Shawn, who's with us from Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

SHAWN (Caller): Good afternoon, gentlemen.

CONAN: Good afternoon, Shawn.

SHAWN: I appreciate your show. I have a simple question it seems none of the presidential candidates seem to want to address. And regardless of who wins the election, what do you think, and your guests think, the chances of the draft being reinstated? And I'm calling on behalf of my two sons. One is 24 and one is soon to be 18.

CONAN: Senator Nelson?

Sen. NELSON: Well, I don't think it's very likely. As a matter of fact, I would go ahead and say it's unlikely that the draft would be reinstated. We at the present time have had the right number of new sign-ups so that our recruiting is going on very well at the moment. I don't know what the future holds for that. Re-enlistment or retention is in question at the moment. But I don't think that we're going to move away from an all-volunteer force. But there are some stresses that are clearly being put on the all-volunteer force. And my colleague and friend Senator Cornyn hit it on the head that we do need to balance our military again.

Because of decisions that were made in the past, some of the most important skill sets that are required in this kind of an operation have been embedded in the Guard and Reserve units and there aren't enough of those skill sets in the regular military, in the active-duty military. And so what we're having is a disproportionate reliance on Guard and Reserve units. I think that's where the question really will come up is how solid will our recruitment be able to be and retention there.

SHAWN: Well, I just think that because of the numbers and the people I've talked to who are not re-upping-I don't know if I meant reinstated. I know we have-my children have to register for the draft, and I mean activated, the kind that I was subject to under the Vietnam era. And my wife is extremely concerned, and my daughters are extremely concerned. And I support our troops 100 percent, but I have to be fair. I do not support the political policies that have been forced upon these families.

CONAN: Senator Cornyn?

Sen. CORNYN: Well, if it will make your caller feel any better, I certainly agree with the sensible comments of Senator Nelson. There's nothing I disagree with that he said. I would just supplement it by saying that I'm looking at a USA Today story, which says that our retention rate for our soldiers is at right about 96 percent, which remains very high, so I just don't think there's any reasonable chance that we will go back to a draft. The other reason is that if you ask the commanding officers, if you ask our military leaders, they think that the all-volunteer force has produced the best and most capable, most professional fighting force the world has ever known, and they do not endorse the idea of going back to a draft.

SHAWN: I couldn't agree more, and thank you, gentlemen. My wife was just worried that-because of prison overcrowding, she was afraid that people were going to get their records expunged and be turned loose on the world in our name, so thank you very much, gentlemen.

CONAN: Shawn, thanks very much for the phone call.

SHAWN: Bye-bye.

CONAN: And, senators, I know both of you have very limited time. We appreciate you spending some of it with us today.

Sen. CORNYN: Glad to be with you. Thank you.

Sen. NELSON: It's our pleasure, and we look forward to doing it again and thanks to my good friend from Texas. It'll be good to see you tomorrow.