Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - U.S. Policy and Military Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: U.S. POLICY AND MILITARY OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

WITNESSES: DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PAUL WOLFOWITZ; JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN GENERAL RICHARD MYERS; UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS MARC GROSSMAN

LOCATION: 106 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): Secretary Wolfowitz, all of us share your admiration and your gratitude to the men and women who are serving in Iraq. They are the best that our country has to offer. And that is why I am increasingly concerned about the strain that we are putting on our Reservists and our Guard members, their families and their employers.

Now Secretary Rumsfeld testified recently before our committee that only 7 percent of the Guard and Reserve have been involuntarily mobilized more than once in the past 13 years. I have to tell you that has not been our experience in Maine at all. I have talked to numerous Guard members and Reservists who have been deployed three times in the last decade.

To illustrate my concern, I'd want to tell you about the specific experience of a specific Reserve unit, and that's the 94th MP Company. This unit has been deployed two and a half of the past four years. They spent nine months in Bosnia. They've now been in Iraq for more than a year. They originally were scheduled to come home last fall. Then the Pentagon changed the policy to one year boots on the ground, so their tour was extended. That year expired on Easter weekend and they were literally on the bus to their plane to take them back to the United States when they got the news that once again they would be extended. I have to tell you that this has been devastating to the families and demoralizing to many of the soldiers who serve in this unit.

General Abizaid testified before us last year that one of the most important things for any soldier to know is when they're coming home when they're employed in a combat zone. He went on to say, quote, "We owe those soldiers the answer as to when that might be." Well, the answer has changed time and again, and I'm very concerned about what the impact is on these troops, their families and their employers.

I have three questions for you.

First, doesn't the fact that we are repeatedly deploying the same Reservists and the same members of the Guard over and over again suggest that we don't have the right mix of skills in the Army?

Second, are you concerned that changing the rules and extending deployments repeatedly, plus having a very high rate of deployment, is going to hurt our ability to retain skilled soldiers such as those in this unit?

And third, is the Pentagon considering any extra compensation for the members of units that have been involuntarily extended beyond the year that they originally thought they were going to have? Actually, it's even longer than that because of the change in policy last fall.

MR. WOLFOWITZ: I'll ask General Myers to comment also, especially on that last question.

But the issue you raise is a very important issue. We've been, even before this came up with your unit, your military police unit from Maine, we knew we had a big problem because of the decision that was really made I think 20 or 30 years ago that we would have a-basically a Cold War military that couldn't go to war unless we were in a condition where the reserves were mobilized on a massive scale. And from that flowed a decision to take certain military occupations-and military police, which is-the unit you're talking about was one of them-and put them almost exclusively in the reserves. And as a result, I think the unit from Maine was deployed to Bosnia's military police.

We need military police in every one of these, whether you call it peacekeeping, which is not Iraq, or stability operations, or low- intensity war, which is what Iraq is. And if you're part of that 7 percent that is mobilized more often, it doesn't matter to you that it's only-quote, "only" 7 percent. I think the secretary was clear about that.

General Schoomaker has put together a plan that will move 100,000 positions, shift them from the active force to the Reserve-or from the Reserve to the active force so that we can begin to cover these needs in a more balanced way with the active force, so that we're not constantly going back to the same well on Reservists for certain occupations that don't exist.

Military police is one, civil affairs is another. That's going to take some time. But it's a-it is a major part of the fix.

The second major part of the fix is to increase the effective size of the army. Now, I said "effective size" because what General Schoomaker's plan is, is focused with about a 30,000 temporary increase in active Army manpower to work through a plan, as I think you've been briefed, but it's worth repeating, that we'll add at least 10 active brigades to the 33 in the Army now. And if we get to that point of 10 and think we should go further, there's a plan to go to 48, which would be a 50 percent increase in the number of active combat brigades in the Army with this roughly 30,000 personnel increase. And that 30,000 increase will be mostly temporary, particularly if we top off at 43.

There's no question it would be nice right now to have a larger army. The problem is, if we decided now or a year ago to have a larger army, you can't just-these people don't just walk in and-it's not like hiring for a check-writing organization. You have to grow the units. And once you've grown them, if it turns out that you've built up something you don't need, then you go through the pain of the 1990s of demobilizing people who you recruited in. So it's something the Army and the civilian leadership undertake with some care. I think we have a good plan here that gives us a chance to get more combat power into the Army. And if we ultimately decide a permanent increase is necessary, we can do that. But none of that, I'm afraid, helps your wonderful people from Maine. And on the question of-let me ask General Myers to speak to that, and I certainly want to look into whether there are things that we can do on the compensatory front.

General Myers?

GEN. MYERS: Senator Collins, your first question, does a repeated deployment mean we have the wrong mix, and as Secretary Wolfowitz said, absolutely. We are not structured for the security environment we're in.

To put a little texture on the hundred thousand that the Army's going to be restructuring, they're going to take down field artillery battalions, air defense battalions, turn them into-and others, but those are two of the primary ones-and turn those into military police units, transportation units, petroleum distribution, water distribution. You know, it's the kind of units that we-are in very high demand, and also put more of those in the active force. And that work has already started. It will continue for the next four or five years as we re-balance. It's a very important part of it.

Retention. Clearly, this unit has worked very hard. MPs are in high demand. I can remember right after 9/11 the MPs that showed up at Fort Myer, where I live, to provide addition security for the post. And there were some active duty for a while, and then pretty soon some Guard and Reserve, and sometimes forces that weren't trained to be MPs that were re-trained to come up there and help.

So, clearly we've got to do a better of this whole mix. The retention issue is huge. I would only say that as we look at recruiting and retention, this mission is so important that I think these people, besides being disappointed-I mean, their families being tremendously disappointed and their employers being disappointed, that what they're doing is so important that I hope that that, along with other incentives, will convince them to stay with us. This is an important time to serve. I think they realize that. They're terrific men and women, as most of these MP companies are.

And the third point was extra compensation, and absolutely we are. Within our authorities we have authority for providing extra compensation for those that are going to be extended past the one- year, we call it "boots on the ground" in Iraq, there will be additional compensation.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.