Nomination of Francis J. Harvey to be Secretary of the Army

EXECUTIVE SESSION

NOMINATION OF FRANCIS J. HARVEY TO BE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Warner for his consideration in arranging this opportunity to discuss the nomination of Dr. Harvey to be the Secretary of the Army. First, let me say it is obvious Dr. Harvey is an admirable person with experience and skill. In my view, this debate is less about Dr. Harvey and more about the United States Army; whether he is prepared to take the necessary steps to respond to severe crises that affect the Army today. The Army is extended across the globe. The Army is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just returned from a trip to both Iraq and Afghanistan. I have seen these magnificent soldiers serve us with distinction and courage, but it is a very stressful and demanding responsibility that each day they discharge, and, indeed, for the Army the stresses are beginning to build.

I think we have to recognize affirmatively that the Army must be bigger, not on a temporary basis but on a permanent basis. I think we also need to recognize the Army needs additional resources. Senator Levin, in his comments, pointed out the shortfall between the money the Army has estimated is necessary to recoup and repair their equipment and the actual funds they have available. If we do not address these issues, I believe we will begin to expose the Army to irreversible damage which certainly no one here in this body wants to see happen.

One inescapable conclusion of my trip to Afghanistan and Iraq is that we will be in these countries for years; not months but for years. The cost, the human cost and the financial cost to the country and to the Army particularly, will be substantial.

I have no doubt Dr. Harvey is a consummate professional. He is very skilled in managing organizations. I know he is committed to doing his best as Secretary of the Army, but I believe the Army needs a leader, not necessarily a manager. Also, I think we need an aggressive advocate for the Army. I hope that perhaps the result of this debate, if Dr. Harvey is confirmed, is that he will become that aggressive advocate for the Army. I know advocacy has to be appropriate. He has to be loyal to his civilian superiors. But he has to be someone who will take the case of the Army to the Secretary and, if necessary, beyond. Also, I believe any Secretary of the Army has to be cooperative with this Congress. He has to respond candidly and directly to our questions and our comments.

One of the issues we all have as leaders is the necessity to speak truth to power on occasion. One of the observations I would make is that we have seen, in the experiences of General Shinseki and Secretary Tommy White, occasions where they gave us their best opinion and they effectively were punished for those views.

I think that is wrong. I think that attitude has to be corrected. That is another responsibility of the Secretary of the Army, to ensure that uniformed officers have the opportunity to express themselves appropriately and not fear retribution. All of us will benefit from the advice the uniformed officers of this country can so wisely give to us.

Secretary White was discharged many months ago as Secretary of the Army. It took a very long time for the Secretary of Defense and the President to nominate Dr. Harvey. In the interim we were extremely well served by Acting Secretary Les Brownlee. I don't have to add more than what the chairman and the ranking member have said about the qualities of that individual. I just had the privilege about 10 days ago to be with Secretary Brownlee up in West Point where he represented the Army at the Board of Visitors meeting. He is a consummate professional, someone who has rendered extraordinary service to the Army and to the Nation. But one of the issues I find somewhat disturbing is that even though we were well represented by Secretary Brownlee, it took so long for the Secretary of Defense to nominate a permanent Secretary. I think that I can put it this way: I find that doesn't suggest the importance the job must bear. That is another reason I found it somewhat unusual, at the very end of our session, before the election, there was a sudden rush to confirm Dr. Harvey.

I had the occasion to speak with Dr. Harvey.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the interest of accuracy, I wonder if the Senator will yield?

Mr. REED. Yes.

Mr. WARNER. I know you want to be accurate. You are known on the committee as being a very accurate person, but you know the Secretary of Defense did forward the name of Secretary Roche, Secretary of the Air Force, to the Senate. Therein we discovered other situations that dictated in good, common sense that nomination should be withdrawn. But it did show action by the Secretary, and I wanted that part of the record.

Mr. REED. I thank the chairman. I reclaim my time, and I thank him for that important and accurate input. I think, though, we have been so many months without a Secretary, and even when the nomination of Secretary Roche seemed to be in doubt, there was not the kind of response I thought necessary to show we had a permanent Secretary in place.

Then, of course, Dr. Harvey was nominated in July. The chairman is absolutely right. After it became apparent that Secretary Roche would not lead the Air Force-but, July until, again, September or October, there was no movement to get someone confirmed in an office that is vital. The chairman is correct. He is entirely accurate and I accept that gratefully.

One of the real issues that we have to deal with is the situation in the Army, and I think there are three areas that are of critical importance. First is end strength. Senator Levin has spoken to that. Second is the recapitalization issue, how do we repair this equipment and how do we buy new equipment. Again, Senator Levin has talked to that. Finally, there is this issue of leadership, of making sure that the Army is accountable to its peers in the legislative branch, accountable to
Congress, and accountable to the values that we have all seen as the hallmark of the military.

These are critical issues that the next Secretary will have to address.

On the issue of end strength, during the last several months it has become increasingly clear to me, at least, that the Army needs to increase defense. It needs more Active-Duty soldiers in its ranks.

Since 1989, the Army military end strength has been cut by more than 34 percent, and civilian end strength by more than 45 percent, while undergoing a 300-percent increase in mission rate. That is not illogical.

At the end of the Cold War-1989-1990-with the vanishing of the Soviet threat, the notion that we needed a heavy-armored corps in Europe to stop the potential thrust into Central Europe was no longer operative. So the Army was reduced. That logic was apparent.

Then mission rate began to increase not just a few years ago but through Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkan threat. Just as there was logic in the early 1990s to reduce the size of our Army, I believe there is a compelling logic today to increase the size of our Army.

For the past several years, the Army end strength has been virtually constant at 418,400. In December 2001, for example, with the 482,400 end strength, there were about 100,000 Army personnel stationed abroad. Today, there are about 330,000 Army personnel stationed abroad.

You can see the tremendous increase in demand for these troops to be taken from home stations and deployed overseas.

Similarly, in 2004, 26 of the Army's 33 active combat brigades were deployed overseas at least once, and in 2003 and 2004 all 33 of the active Army combat brigades will have been deployed.

We all recognize that our operations in Iraq were conducted by extraordinarily brave troops, and extraordinarily effectively in the opening phases. In a matter of days, the Iraqi military was destroyed. Saddam was toppled from power. Then we began what in retrospect was the most critical part of the campaign-the occupation and reestablishment of civil society in
Iraq.

One of the aspects of this phase is the growing recognition that it was not well planned. And we are indeed paying for that in terms of American military on the ground. Mistakes were made in the planning process.

According to a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, when a lieutenant colonel briefed war planners and intelligence officers about phase 4-C-not the combat but the occupation operations, both civilian and military operations after the battle is won-he was briefing them in March 2003. But he was a little bit reticent because the slide he had simply said this: "To be provided."

We did not have good plans to occupy the country of Iraq. Today, we are paying for that lack of planning.

The same Philadelphia Inquirer article pointed out that it is not because we didn't recognize there were potential problems in Iraq, but in the words of the article, there was a "foot high stack of material" discussing the probability of stiff resistance in Iraq. A former senior intelligence official stated, "It was disseminated. And ignored."

But we see at least some indication of the difficult path ahead when the office referred to the comments General Shinseki made in February 2003. Senator Levin asked him how many troops it would take. He said, "Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." He was immediately castigated by Secretary Rumsfeld, saying this estimate was "far from the mark." Secretary Wolfowitz called it "outlandish."

And, once again, it raises another challenge for the next Secretary of the Army to deal with.

How do we ensure that military officers will give their best advice and not suffer adverse consequences when they are asked by the Congress? We have a role to play. In fact, I think when many of us looked back, we hoped we had played a more significant role, particularly about the postwar occupation of Iraq.

I think it is important for this next Secretary to develop a situation where these officers feel confident of being candid with their superiors in uniform and with Members of Congress.

I know it has been pointed out that General Shinseki already had announced his plans to retire, or the Secretary had announced his plans for him. But, nevertheless, I think the treatment he received after his candid response to the committee was shabby and not comparable with the service this gentleman rendered the U.S. Army and the Nation.

We understand, given the occupation unanticipated in many respects, we are going to require a significant number of soldiers in Iraq. This, again, should not come as a surprise to many people.

This chart is illustrative. It basically compares the ratio of soldiers in Iraq with historical records. The first line-the blue line-is the occupation of Germany. Again, we had huge numbers of soldiers on the ground in Germany. The red line shows the troop level for Japan. The next is the Somalia level, then Haiti, and noticeably the successful operations in the Balkans. This horizontal line represents our troop levels in Iraq today, 142,000.

History should have shown us that we would need a much larger Army to carry off this occupation in Iraq.

You might say, Well, we succeeded in Japan. But we succeeded by essentially preempting the entire Japanese Government. Once the Emperor made his fateful visit to General MacArthur and bowed to him, our problems with insurgency and rehabilitation of the Japanese were all but over. It took years but not militarily successful; again, in Somalia and Haiti. In Somalia, we left abruptly without a great deal of grace despite the courage of soldiers who performed magnificently there. Haiti might be a special case. But it should be clear that we need more troops on the ground.

If you need more troops on the ground, then you just simply need a larger Army.

That is something that we have to confront. That is just one.

Last summer, Secretary Rumsfeld asked the Defense Science Board, an independent group of experts, to study the transition from hostilities. Do we need more troops or less? Can we rely on technology or troops? They took a comprehensive look at missions and initiatives to reduce strain on the Army. Again, these are very sophisticated individuals selected by Secretary Rumsfeld. Their conclusion:

A smaller force may be needed to defeat opponents than that needed for stabilization and reconstruction operations. Technology has not had the same leverage in stabilization sales and reconstruction that it has in conflict. Warfighting transformation is not likely to save manpower needed for stabilization and reconstruction.

Consistent with history, consistent with what military officers tell us and presumably telling the Department of Defense, we need more troops for operations such as stabilization operations.

We also understand that there are roughly 138,000 troops stationed in the country today. And in anticipation of the election, in January the Pentagon announced they were going to try to increase that size.

Again, I think the inescapable conclusion from history and from uniformed military leaders candidly telling us their best judgment and from the result of the Defense Science Board is that we need more troops. We need a larger Army for these missions.

But there are other issues that should suggest to us that we could use more troops effectively. We recently heard about a huge ammo dump that was discovered. It was apparently looted, and apparently unguarded for many months.

When I was in Iraq traveling with the chairman and ranking member in July, we were in Kirkuk. I was amazed to hear a general of the 4th Infantry Division talk about the hundreds and hundreds of unsecured American ammo dumps. I don't believe they were unsecured because we believed there was no danger. It is simply because they did not have sufficient forces then to guard every ammo dump. They didn't have loyal Iraqi forces to support their efforts.

Again, we have seen a situation in the last few days where we have conducted very successful and very difficult operations in Fallujah. Once again, the courage of the marines and the soldiers has been extraordinary-house-to-house fighting, difficult fighting. They have endeavored and succeeded in many respects not only in taking valuable terrain but also sparing innocent civilians with extraordinary demonstration of courage and skill.

But as they reduce Fallujah, the insurgents again move operations into Mosul and Bogoba. They span out and spread out and hit us. Frankly, one of the reasons they were successful in Mosul was because there was no significant American forces there. And the local police-some fought valiantly and a few others disappeared. Over a period of time, the whole town was under the control of the insurgents.

When we went into Mosul and started injecting American forces and more reliable Iraqi forces, they now hit Bogoba and other parts of the Sunni triangle. That is another strong suggestion that more American forces might be useful in country.

Finally, the borders of Iraq remain very porous. Smuggling is a venerable tradition in that part of the world, and the smuggling trade continues to operate.

Could we use more troops? Yes. The administration and the Department of Defense have said that our future and our salvation is with the Iraqi security forces. I believe they are right, but that is the long term. That is years from now. We are training an Iraqi national army force. And, frankly, the training is at the level of squads and platoons. They haven't reached the level of companies or battalions that can effectively replace American units. They do not have the kind of equipment we have. The prospect of reliable, well-trained and well-disciplined Iraqi forces is many months if not years away.

We have a large number in Iraq already. Some might say: Goodness gracious, you have a bigger army than the 130,000 troops that are there right now-140,000 troops. But I don't think people recognize that the troops that are deployed are just, if you will, the tip of the spear. They are behind in administration, behind in troops that are training there, and there are troops that are recovering from being there.

It is important to recognize that even though there are roughly 140,000 troops in Iraq, it is clearly tasking our Army.

An observer of the scene, former Army officer Phillip Carter, tried to put this in perspective. Even the simplest military task, such as moving a unit from point A to point B, requires a Herculean logistical effort. Planes have to be scheduled; trains have to be contracted and loaded; ships must be diverted and filled with equipment. Just consider what it takes to move a single tank company from Fort Stewart to Fallujah. Soldiers have to spend days inspecting and packing their vehicles before loading them onto trains to take them to port. The trains will be met by more soldiers at dockside, who will work with longshoremen and contractors to put the tanks on a ship. Then the ship has to sail across to Kuwait where it will be met by more troops and contractors. Only then can they roll them north to Iraq. Moving one tank company costs a fortune and requires hundreds of people.

Now imagine you want to move an entire unit such as the 3rd Infantry Division with hundreds of tanks and thousands of other vehicles. The size and complexity of the task is staggering. It may cost as much as $1 billion to send a division to Iraq. And it can't be done quickly.

Major bases in the United States have a finite "throughput" capacity, meaning that they can only squeeze so many pieces of equipment out the door any given day.

The tip of this spear is in Iraq. But whatever we have there, we need many more back here, again raising, I think, the obvious need for additional end strength for our Army.

In January 2004, LTG John Riggs, in charge of the Army of the future, stated:

I have been in the Army 39 years, and I've never seen the Army as stretched in that 39 years as I have today.

In July, LTG Jay Garner, who was the Bush administration's first generation in postwar Iraq, stated:

I think people are worn out, equipment is run down, and we've overstressed the reserves. We're drastically short [of] infantry and MPs because the Army is too small.

But all of this seems to have not made an impression on the Department of Defense with respect to the need to increase the size of the Army.

I think it is not just a question of numbers. It is a question of the stress being borne by soldiers and their families.

Approximately 16,000 Active-Duty soldiers have had two tours in Iraq, and if they stay in the service longer, they will have another.

That is a very significant statement.

In June of 2004, DOD projected that over the next 3 to 5 years it will continuously have 100,000 to 150,000 Reserve component members mobilized.

It has been estimated that if we do not increase the Army size, forces that have already been deployed to Iraq will have to return two more times. Mr. President, 3,600 troops normally stationed in Korea to protect us against North Korea, a country that arguably is a dangerous threat to us with their nuclear weapons and their mentality, have been redeployed to Iraq.

On July 6, the Defense Department stated it was calling up 5,674 members of the Individual Ready Reserve soldiers who have completed active duty, were in an 8-year period to be recalled, and they are being recalled, but they do not drill on a regular basis and some have not put on a uniform in 3, 4, 5, 6 years.

The DOD also implemented a series of stop-loss policies, what some might call a backdoor draft. Since September 11, DOD has announced six stop-loss policies for the Army, two for the Navy, five for the Air Force, and two for the Marine Corps. Only the Army still has a stop-loss policy, which means, effectively, once the unit is alerted, until 90 days after they return, that individual soldier cannot leave the Army even if his enlistment is up. These tours are increasingly longer. It is not just 12 months in-country; it is also the training beforehand and the demobilization after.

As many have pointed out, a great burden is falling on our Reserve and National Guard units. Men and women who have full-time jobs, men and women who have families far away from their mobilization point. Today, frankly, we cannot meet our requirements in the Army without the Guard and Reserve. These are extraordinarily talented, consummate professionals. The citizen soldiers have done a remarkable job for us, but the strain is immense on the Reserve and National Guard, once again suggesting we need a larger regular force. We have adopted all sorts of measures, stop-loss, relying heavily on the Reserves, but the underlying point which has to be confronted by the next Secretary is how do we increase permanently, with regular budget authority, the Regular Forces of the United States. The average mobilization for members of the Reserves and National Guard has increased to 342 days this year from 156 during the Persian Gulf, again corresponding to the increased reliance we are placing on the Reserve soldiers.

As we pointed out previously, the DOD mobilization authority states that the members of the Reserve component can be mobilized for no more than 24 months. Currently, 30,000 Reserve component members are up against this 24-month cap. But in 2005, indeed, a large portion next year will bump up against this cap. So we are using the Reserves and National Guard, and they are performing well, but this underscores the need for a large regular force. A larger regular force is included in the budget, but not funded by emergency provisions through supplemental appropriations.

We are beginning to see, as a result of the stress on the Guard particularly, an erosion in terms of recruitment and retention. The Army National Guard ended fiscal year 2003 approximately 7,800 soldiers below the recruiting goal. Last month, the Army National Guard announced it expected to fall 5,000 short of the goal of 56,000 soldiers. A survey by the Army Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences reported to us that more than one in three Army reservists plan to leave or transfer to the inactive reserve when the current enlistment ended; only a quarter will reenlist.

The Active Army made the reporting goal, but they did this by pulling forward one-half of the delayed entry program. Each year, they sign up young men and women who do not expect to report until the next year. In order to make the goal, they counted those soldiers in this year's accounting. So they start off essentially in a hole for this year because they cannot double-count those soldiers.

The other factor I see potentially damaging in the longer run, for the first time in a very long time, a small fraction of soldiers is being led into the Army who are normally rejected because of lower qualifications. It is roughly 2,000 out of 100,000, but that is a trend that certainly we do not want do see grow or continue, and it is illustrative of the need to make the totals because of the stress our military is under.

The other aspect is we are committed to making sure that the Army is there and we are trying to do that through incentives and bonuses, which puts additional financial stress on the budget of the Army. Again, this is something we can't avoid. That is the way we have to fund and maintain a volunteer force, but it is an issue in terms of long-term ability of the Army to find the resources so that they can pay these bonuses, they can pay the benefits, they can enlist the force.

One other final aspect of this issue of reliance upon a force which I believe is too small. We have seen, for the first time in a notable way in Iraq, reliance and overreliance on contractors-not contractors who do the mess halls. By the way, they are doing a magnificent job over there. The quality of life of soldiers is first-rate. But I am taken aback when I see private contractors providing security. We all recall that even Ambassador Bremer's security was provided not by military people but by private civilian contractors. That is another indication to me that we have to increase the Regular Army.

Part of this was a result of a plan that did not anticipate a long-term, intensive involvement in Iraq. As mentioned before, this has been pointed out by others. In December of 2003, Jeffrey Record, of the Army's own Strategic Studies Institute, published a report that stated the ground force requirements in Iraq have forced the U.S. Army to the breaking point. He says the Army appears incapable of sustaining a commitment of 16 of its 33 active-duty combat brigades in Iraq absent a reduction elsewhere or expansion of its force structure.

Again, the Defense Science Board stated that current and projected force structure will not sustain our current projected globalization. There are inadequate total numbers of troops and a lack of long-term endurance. The board recommended adding troops or cutting back missions. It is very difficult to cut back missions.

I should point out that the board was aware of the attempts to reform the military, the modularity that is going on within the military. Again, this is a very positive development. I commend the Chief of Staff, General Schoomaker, and those who are trying to reforge the Army to be more efficient, but the Defense Science Board recognized these efficiencies and still stated that we need more troops.

We have in the Senate, with the cooperation of the chairman and ranking member, tried to do this. Again, going back a year or so ago, together with Senator Hagel, we introduced legislation that would increase the Army by 10,000. It passed this Senate, but the Department of Defense objected to it, and it fell out of the conference report. We were successful in the last authorization to include an increase of 20,000 end strength, but once again the Department of Defense insisted that these troops be paid through emergency procedure.

We have to have a situation where the end strength is increased but it is also paid for through the regular budget process. My fear is that eventually it will get more difficult to pass supplementals. Senator Levin pointed out how the Army will rethink the demand of a significant amount of money next year in the supplemental for 2005. Yet even with that money they might not be able to sustain all their needs, equipment, or otherwise.

Unless we have an authorized end strength that is paid for through the regular budget process, we may end up leaving the Army in the lurch in the years ahead. When the budget comes down, the supplementals are not as robust, and they still have the missions and the troops they need to conduct those missions. That is a critical issue that the Secretary must address. I raised these issues with Dr. Harvey. He certainly listened attentively, but I received no commitment that he was going to move aggressively to do this.

The other issue of equipment, which has been addressed by the ranking member, is the Army has sustained 1.6 billion in equipment battle losses in Afghanistan and Iraq. Presently it has an unfunded requirement of 1.3 billion for ammunition. The Army estimates a third of the equipment is either already in Southwest Asia or en route. In fiscal year 2005, approximately 1.6 million pieces of Army equipment will be sent back to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan for repairs, upgrade, or replacement. The Army expects to need $7 billion for this effort.

We have an extraordinary demand to keep Army equipment going, and the requests, so far, the supplemental requests have not met those demands. I personally believe we have to have a robust, dedicated fund from sources outside the Army so we can fund the simple recapitalization of the equipment needs of the military.

There is another aspect of the equipment demand. We have taken a great deal of equipment from the National Guard and forces in the United States, moved it overseas, leaving our National Guard back here with a fraction of their critical equipment. As my colleagues recognize, the National Guard plays a critical role in homeland security, a critical role in aiding States and localities with disaster assistance, and they are not only deployed overseas but many of the guardsmen left behind do not have the full complement of equipment-another issue we have to deal with.

I could go on at great length talking about recurring equipment needs. There are other examples that are critically important. Nearly all the equipment, for example, in our stockpiles in Southwest Asia has already been deployed forward. We do not have those robust stockpiles of equipment necessary if there is another contingency in the area. The only area where stocks appear to be untouched is Korea, which I think is a very prudent decision. This is another example of the issues we are facing in terms of equipment.

As we go forward, we have endeavored to provide the resources to our military to conduct the important operations overseas. In the past 17 months, President Bush has requested and Congress has appropriated $187 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq. We also anticipate an additional request of $70 billion in the next few weeks or months. We are spending a great deal of money, but still the needs of the Army are unmet. We have to provide for the needs. We have to provide for the necessary equipment.

We have a crisis in end strength. We have a crisis in recapitalization of equipment, and we also have an issue of leadership. I have stressed this before so I will be brief.

We have had two individuals serving the Army in this administration. General Shinseki and Secretary White were called upon to give their best views to the Congress. They did, and essentially they were punished for those views. That, to me, is not an effective way to use the offices of the Army or to get the kind of cooperation within the executive branch and the kind of cooperation between the Congress and the military service that is so necessary. Again, I feel the inhibitions that resulted from that very dramatic public behavior might have prevented individuals from appropriately sharing with us information about the planning problems for postwar Iraq, about the need for additional forces, about the need for recapitalization of equipment. In the long run, it is a very destructive and corrosive force. The next Secretary has to deal with that on an individual basis and on a collective basis in the Army and within the Department of Defense.

Also, too, an issue that has concerned many, and one that we were shocked by, was the scenes of the Abu Ghraib prison, where individual soldiers have been held accountable, enlisted people, E-5s, E-6s, E-4s, but anyone who has read the reports and anyone who has been in the area in which the chairman has conducted it in a very professional and very courageous fashion has to understand that accountability does not stop here.

We have had numerous reports by the IG, by General Taguba, by General Kern, and by others which suggests at least people at ranks beyond noncommissioned officer have to be held accountable. Yet to date there has been no accountability, in my mind.

I was curious as to just simply who had the responsibility to press court-martial charges against some of the individuals notified in the report by General Karpinski. Now, that is, I am told no general officer can go before a court-martial without an IG report. The IG has conducted a report. I found out that the IG, General Mikolashek, is scheduled to retire in a few days. I don't know what the status of his report is, whether he forwarded it to the convening authority and whether the convening authority is taking steps. The convening authority is General Helmsley, who is the Reserve component commander. Colonel Pappas, who is out of the 5th Military Intelligence Brigade, and General Sanchez was originally the convening authority-he decided because of appearances, and I think appropriately, that he shouldn't be involved. It was then sent to General Bell, the USAREUR commander, and now it has been delegated to General Benny Williams. It seems to me in the course of trying to establish responsibility beyond the company grade level that we have not made much progress.

I believe the next Secretary of the Army has to deal with this issue directly because it would be unfortunate-more than unfortunate-if individual soldiers were punished and it appeared that seniors who might be culpable-not directly involved in brutality but for dereliction of duty or for failure to follow the law of warfare-simply walked away or were lost in the shuffle of paperwork and reports. That is the challenge this Secretary has to deal with because the essence, in my mind, of a military officer is accountability and responsibility, and you do not get that by pushing reports and pushing paper and suddenly trying to make it go away.

Maybe I am just premature in my demands for some type of finality to this situation. I don't think so. Again, I believe the next Secretary of the Army has to establish a very simple rule: Soldiers are responsible for what they do and commanders are responsible for their commands. I hope that is done because, if not, all the issues I have talked about-the lack of troops, the need for new equipment and refurbishment of equipment-will pale in comparison if people can draw the lesson that only soldiers are punished and superiors are somehow able to escape, at least the opportunity to be held accountable.

Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield? He brings up a subject of great importance to the committee. Indeed, I commend the committee as a whole for the manner in which it pursued its look into this situation. We are awaiting what is described as maybe the final report-the Senator is aware of that-which is to be a compendium analysis of previous reports and such other factors deemed relevant.

There is also an outstanding request that I put to General Kern and his group in the course of the hearing that we would like
to have them, once again, assess the full meaning of accountability as they use that.

I thank the Senator for raising the question. I assure him it is something I will continue as chairman in the coming Congress. This is a matter which the committee will once again address.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I reclaim my time. Let me, once again, commend the chairman because he took a position that was very difficult.

Mr. WARNER. I thank the distinguished Senator. The ranking member was a full working partner, together with all Members of the committee.

Mr. REED. Let me add, honestly, without his sensitivity to the importance of this issue, to the long run values of the military, it would not have received any attention. I commend the chairman for continuing his efforts.

I just point out, all this might be coincidental. General Kern retired on Saturday, I believe. I hope the report and response is ready and en route to the chairman. I hope he, too, agrees with me that this is not an issue that we can ignore.

I must say also this is not just an Army issue. I think there was a tendency initially to portray this as the aberrant behavior of young soldiers. As we now know, there was much more complicated and high-level involvement. What involvement is still unclear, but we cannot walk away from this issue. And because the next Secretary of the Army will have so much authority with respect to reports, with respect to reviewing at least court-martial proceedings or involved in these decisions, this issue has to be addressed. And that is one of the major challenges I think Dr. Harvey will address, I hope, if he is confirmed.

Let me again conclude by thanking the chairman not only for his leadership but for the gracious way he has helped today to illustrate these issues and to assist me in my presentation. I thank him. I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REED. I don't have the document, but an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer of October 17, 2004 made several references. First:

Franks' Central Command did have an extensive plan to restore order and begin rebuilding the country, called Operation Desert Crossing, said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who drew up the plan and updated it continuously when he led Centcom until 2000. It was never used.

Further in the story:

Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld's opening bid was about 40,000, "a division-plus," said three senior military officials who participated in the discussions. Bush and his top advisers finally approved the 250,000 troops the commanders requested to launch the invasion. But the additional troops that the military wanted to secure Iraq after Hussein's regime fell were either delayed or never sent.

I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 17, 2004]

THE IRAQ WAR: MISCALCULATION AND MISSTEP

WASHINGTON.-In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material-and for good reason. The slide said: "To Be Provided."

An Inquirer Washington Bureau review of the Iraq policy and decisions of the administration has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide about 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship, and economic sanctions.

In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting insurgents who slip easily across Iraq's long borders, diehards from the old regime, and Iraqis angered by their country's widespread crime and unemployment and the United States' sometimes heavy boots.

"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.

The military's plan to defeat Hussein's army worked brilliantly and U.S. troops have distinguished themselves on the battlefield.

However, the review found that the President and many of his advisers ignored repeated warnings that rebuilding Iraq would be harder than ousting Saddam Hussein, and they tossed out years of planning about how to rebuild Iraq, in part because they thought pro-American Iraqi exiles and Iraqi "patriots" would quickly pick up the pieces.

The CIA predicted up until the war's opening days that the Iraqi army would turn against Hussein, which never happened.

This report is based on official documents and on interviews with more than three dozen current and former civilian and military officials who participated directly in planning for the war and its aftermath. Most still support the decision to go to war but say many of the subsequent problems could have been avoided.

Every effort was made to get those who were interviewed to speak for the record, but many officials requested anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the administration publicly or because they feared retaliation.

President Bush and top officials in Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. They have publicly defended their plans for the invasion and its aftermath, and now some top officials are blaming the CIA for failing to predict the messy aftermath of Hussein's fall.

The United States and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi are now taking steps to defeat the Iraqi insurgency and will have national elections in January. They have negotiated an agreement to disarm some of the militia led by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and are pressing an offensive against Sunni rebels. After more than a year of internal squabbling, U.S. military commanders, intelligence officers, and diplomats in Baghdad are acting as a team.

But the hole created by the absence of an adequate plan to rebuild Iraq, the failure to provide enough troops to secure the country, the misplaced faith in Iraqi exiles, and other mistakes made after Baghdad fell is a deep one.

"We've finally got our act together, but we're all afraid it may be too late," said one senior official who is engaged daily in Iraq policy.

The Bush administration's failure to plan to win the peace in Iraq was the product of many of the same problems that plagued the administration's case for war, including wishful thinking, bad information from Iraqi exiles who said Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops as liberators, and contempt for dissenting opinions.

However, the administration's planning for postwar Iraq differed in one crucial respect from its erroneous prewar claims about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and links to al-Qaeda.

The U.S. intelligence community had been divided about the state of Hussein's weapons programs, but there was little disagreement among experts throughout the government that winning the peace in Iraq could be much harder than winning a war.

"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion.

Without an "overwhelming" effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned, "The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."

A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that U.S. troops could face significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers, but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it.

"It was disseminated. And ignored," said a former senior intelligence official.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was particularly aggressive in its forecasts, officials said. One briefing occurred in January 2003. Another, in April 2003, weeks after the war began, discussed Hussein's plans for attacking U.S. forces after his troops had been defeated on the battlefield.

Similar warnings came from the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the CIA's National Intelligence Council. The council produced reports in January 2003 titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq."

Unlike the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which Iraqi troops were trying to maintain their grip on Kuwait, "they are now defending their country," said a senior defense official, summarizing the Joint Staff's warnings. "You are going to get serious resistance. This idea that everyone will join you is baloney. But it was dismissed."

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner wasn't named to lead Iraq's reconstruction until January 2003 and didn't oversee the first major interagency conference on postwar Iraq until Feb. 21, less than a month before the invasion.

At the Pentagon, the director of the Joint Staff, Army Gen. George Casey, repeatedly pressed Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the Central Command, for a "Phase 4," or postwar, plan, the senior defense official said.

"Casey was screaming. 'Where is our Phase 4 plan?' " the official said. It never arrived. Casey is now the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Franks' Central Command did have an extensive plan to restore order and begin rebuilding the country, called Operation Desert Crossing, said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who drew up the plan and updated it continuously when he led Centcom until 2000. It was never used.

The same officials who saw no need for a plan to secure and rebuild a defeated Iraq also saw no need to position thousands of U.S. soldiers, including military police, engineers, ordnance disposal teams, and civil affairs specialists, to begin taking control in Iraq even before the war against Hussein was over.

Long-standing Army doctrine calls for beginning reconstruction in freed areas of a country while fighting rages elsewhere. It also calls for a shift in military forces from combat troops to civil affairs, military police and the like.

"Unfortunately, this did not occur despite clear guidance to the contrary," Army Col. Paul F. Dicker wrote in an assessment.

Bush, Rumsfeld, and other top officials insist that their military commanders were given everything they requested, and Franks wrote in his book, American Soldier, that Rumsfeld supported his war plan.

Technically, that's accurate. However, three top officials who served with Franks at the time said the plan was the product of a lengthy and sometimes heated negotiation between the Central Command and the Pentagon, in which Rumsfeld constantly pressed Franks and other senior officers to commit fewer troops to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

At one point, Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former chairman of the joint chiefs, weighed in on Franks' side and helped persuade Rumsfeld to commit more troops, a senior administration official said.

Rumsfeld and his aides wisely wanted to keep the U.S. footprint in Iraq as small as possible, realizing that more troops would likely breed more Iraqi resentment, and they wanted a smaller, faster force that could overwhelm the Iraqi military before it could torch the country's oil fields, retreat into the cities and create a humanitarian disaster.

"There were different motivations by different people in this administration for going after Iraq, but they all came together . . . in a way that blotted out prudence and caution," said a senior intelligence official.

Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld's opening bid was about 40,000, "a division-plus," said three senior military officials who participated in the discussions. Bush and his top advisers finally approved the 250,000 troops the commanders requested to launch the invasion. But the additional troops that the military wanted to secure Iraq after Hussein's regime fell were either delayed or never sent.

As a result, the two Army divisions that Centcom wanted to help secure the country weren't on hand when Baghdad fell and the country lapsed into anarchy, and a third, the First Cavalry from Fort Hood, Texas, fell so far behind schedule that on April 21 Franks and Rumsfeld dropped it from the plan.

Moreover, one senior military official said, there was a realization that fresh troops would eventually be needed to replace worn-out units in Iraq.

"We could not burn the candle on the Cav prematurely," he said.

Others said that civilian officials in the Pentagon were so convinced that these "follow-on forces" wouldn't be needed in Iraq that they thought they could withdraw 50,000 troops from Iraq in June 2003; 50,000 more in July; and a final 50,000 in August. By September 2003, Rumsfeld and his aides thought, there would be very few American troops left in Iraq.

Instead of providing a plan and enough troops to take control of Iraq, officials, advisers and consultants in and around the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office bet on Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, who assured them that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops as liberators.

Gen. John Keane, the vice chief of the Army staff during the war, said some defense officials believed the exiles' promises.

"We did not see it [the insurgency] coming. And we were not properly prepared and organized to deal with it. . . . Many of us got seduced by the Iraqi exiles in terms of what the outcome would be," Keane told a House committee in July.

Rumsfeld's office "was utterly, arrogantly, ignorantly and negligently unprepared" for the aftermath of the war, said Larry Diamond, who was a political adviser in Baghdad from January to March of this year.

Douglas Feith, the Defense Department's number-three official, and former Pentagon consultant Richard Perle both acknowledged that their vision for post-Hussein Iraq included putting pro-Western exiles in power.

"We had a theme in our minds, a strategic idea, of liberation rather than occupation, giving them [Iraqis] more authority even at the expense of having things done with greater efficiency" by coalition military forces, Feith told The Philadelphia Inquirer last month.

Perle, in an interview, said he and others had for years advocated "helping the Iraqis liberate themselves-which was a completely different approach than we settled on."

"We'll never now how it would have come out if we did it the way we wanted to do it," he said.

The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the State Department all warned that Chalabi was a charlatan, and the uniformed military dragged its heels in training exiles to join the fight against Hussein.

The battle over Chalabi was one of numerous bitter interagency fights about Iraq that Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, never resolved.

"I'm not going to put my thumb on the scale," Bush said at a White House meeting in which Chalabi's bona fides were hotly debated, according to an official who was present.

That left Pentagon officials to plow ahead with their attempt to position Chalabi and his militia, the Free Iraqi Fighting Forces, to take power after Saddam's fall.

Within 48 hours of their arrival in Baghdad in April, some of Chalabi's men, including members of his personal bodyguard force, began taking cars, bank accounts and real estate, said a senior military officer who received reports of the events. It became evident almost as quickly that Chalabi and other exiles had a larger political following in the Pentagon than they did in Iraq.

Intelligence officials now charge that Chalabi or some of his senior aides were paid agents of Iran's intelligence service, and that Chalabi or his security chief provided classified U.S. military information to Iran. Chalabi has denied the allegation.