SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS Tables
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59–389
1999
[H.A.S.C. No. 106–14]
THE STATE OF UNITED STATES MILITARY FORCES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD
JANUARY 20, 1999
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
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One Hundred Sixth Congress
FLOYD D. SPENCE, South Carolina, Chairman
BOB STUMP, Arizona
DUNCAN HUNTER, California
JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio
HERBERT H. BATEMAN, Virginia
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
STEVE BUYER, Indiana
TILLIE K. FOWLER, Florida
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
JAMES TALENT, Missouri
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
J.C. WATTS, Jr., Oklahoma
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee
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JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
BOB RILEY, Alabama
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
MARY BONO, California
JOSEPH PITTS, Pennsylvania
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
STEVEN KUYKENDALL, California
DONALD SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
NORMAN SISISKY, Virginia
JOHN M. SPRATT, Jr., South Carolina
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
OWEN PICKETT, Virginia
LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
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TOM ALLEN, Maine
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
JAMES H. MALONEY, Connecticut
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT BRADY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
MIKE THOMPSON, California
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
Andrew K. Ellis, Staff Director
Michelle Spencer, Research Assistant
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
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1999
HEARING:
Wednesday, January 20, 1999, State of United States Military Forces
APPENDIX:
Wednesday, January 20, 1999
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1999
STATE OF UNITED STATES MILITARY FORCES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
Spence, Hon. Floyd D., a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
Johnson, Adm. Jay L., Chief of Naval Operations
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Krulak, Charles C., Commandant, United States Marine Corps
Reimer, Gen. Dennis J., Chief of Staff, United States Army
Ryan, Gen. Michael E., Chief of Staff, United States Air Force
Shelton, Gen. Henry H., Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Johnson, Adm. Jay L.
Krulak, Gen. Charles C.
Reimer, Gen. Dennis J.
Ryan, Gen. Michael E.
Shelton, Gen. Henry H.
Spence, Hon. Floyd D.
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
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Contractors to Prepare Impact Statements, submitted by Hon. Howard ''Buck'' McKeon
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
Mr. Bartlett
Mr. Hefley
Mr. Hunter
Mr. Kuykendall
Mr. McKeon
Mr. Riley
Mr. Ryun
Mr. Sherwood
Mr. Snyder
Mr. Spence
Mr. Underwood
THE STATE OF UNITED STATES MILITARY FORCES
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 20, 1999.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:10 p.m. in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Floyd D. Spence (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FLOYD D. SPENCE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
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The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will please be in order.
Having officially organized the committee for the 106th Congress earlier today, we didn't want to waste time getting down to business.
I would like to welcome General Shelton, and our four service chiefs to the newly renamed Committee on Armed Services. We are not the National Security Committee any longer. As a matter of fact, the members of the old committee present today will go down in history as having served on the first and only House Committee on National Security.
It is unusual for the committee to be taking testimony from the Joint Chiefs less than 2 weeks before the President submits his budget, but we have got some catching up to do. A lot has happened since last fall, and today's hearing is intended to give us all a better perspective from which to consider the President's budget proposal.
I suspect it is safe to say that last September's hearing before the Senate was not an especially enjoyable experience for some of our witnesses. Nonetheless, the hearing and the events surrounding it represented a watershed in what has been a frustrating and exasperating debate with this administration over the state of our military forces and adequate levels of defense spending.
Until last September, just trying to baseline the service's quality of life, readiness, and modernization shortfalls was—to use an old expression—like pulling teeth. And trying to attain some understanding with regard to the real world implications of these problems was even more difficult.
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What do they mean in terms of risk? What do they mean for the long-term health of an all-volunteer force? What did they mean in terms of our ability to protect and promote our Nation's interests around the world?
In this context, I welcome the President's long overdue admission last fall that the services were facing serious problems, as well as his recognition that fixing these problems would require increased defense spending. I also indicated at the time that I believed there would be bipartisan support in Congress, as well as broad support among the American public, for revitalizing our national defenses—and I want to underline this—if the President was willing to lead on the issue.
Today, with the submittal to Congress of the fiscal year 2000 budget less than 2 weeks away, I hope the President takes the opportunity to address what our witnesses have identified as approximately $150 billion in quality of life, readiness, and modernization shortfalls over the next 6 years.
Other than the little we have learned from our witnesses' recent testimony, press reports, and the occasional White House leak, we are in the dark on the question of whether or not the President has put his money where his mouth is. While some topline increases in spending are expected in the upcoming budget proposal, it is starting to look like there might be far less than meets the eye in the President's budget.
Faced with a shortfall of at least $150 billion, it has been reported in the press that the President's fiscal year 2000 budget will provide a $12 billion, quote-unquote, increase as part of a 6-year $110 billion, quote-unquote, increase.
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Even if we were to take these at face value, the reported, quote-unquote, increase would fall at least $40 billion short of the requirements identified by our witnesses; on average, almost $7 billion short each of the next 6 years.
And also, parenthetically, based on past experience, I would not be surprised to see the heaviest increases, quote-unquote, in the outyears on somebody else's watch. But we all need to be very mindful of our semantics, of our choice of words. The President's budget will almost certainly not provide a $12 billion topline spending—and I underline again for emphasis—''increase'' in fiscal year 2000. Nor is it likely to provide anywhere near $110 billion topline spending increase over the next 6 years.
I suspect that much of the reported increase will not, in fact, be a topline spending increase at all. Instead, a significant percentage of reported ''increases''—and I put it in quotes again for emphasis—are more likely to be comprised of assumed savings from within the services' budgets that have been reapplied elsewhere. They are likely to be unrealized savings taken out of the hide of the services' budgets and internally reprogrammed.
Again, I would not be surprised to see savings from future base closings recommended—coming on, I am sure, factored in years before any savings actually occur, if ever.
Of course, the availability of such savings depends entirely on the validity of the assumptions on which they are based, and obviously assessing how real these savings are will have to await the President's budget submittal. However, we always see the Defense budgets that contain assumptions of great savings that never come to pass. And I can speak from experience of a long time, budgets are just proposals for somebody else to take care of for the most part in the outyears, as I have said earlier.
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If the President's reported $110 billion increase, already well short of the chief's $150 billion requirements, relies heavily on assumed savings, especially savings generated by assumptions of favorable long-term economic conditions, he is taking a high-risk gamble with our military's future.
Make no mistake, both the Pentagon and the Congress have taken advantage of favorable economic conditions such as reduced inflation and lower fuel costs during the course of single budget cycles. But doing so within a single 10- to 12-months budget cycle and after baseline economic assumptions have already been proven too high or too cautious is a far cry from planning on the availability of tens of billions of dollars 5 to 6 years in the future based on assumptions of sustained favorable economic conditions.
If the President chooses such a path to address the services' unfunded requirements, calling it risky would be an understatement. It is betting on the future, hoping for savings and for the sustainment of economic conditions that are perhaps unsustainable. All it will take to come crashing down is an increase in inflation of a percentage point or two or an increase in the price of a barrel of oil, and then what? The services' requirements are real, but the savings may never be.
So I urge everyone to be careful in how we describe and how we consider the President's budget proposal. Assumed future savings are no substitute for sustained real growth in topline spending. I hope the budget contains the real spending increases to apply against real shortfalls. I hope my fears of an overreliance on assumed future savings turn out to be unfounded. Most of all I hope, as I did last fall, the President chooses to lead on this important issue.
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In the meantime, I think it is important for our witnesses this afternoon to walk us through in some detail the approximately $150 billion in unfunded requirements that you have identified. Likewise, as you proceed, I urge each of you to put these shortfalls into context. Tell us what they mean in the day-to-day world of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, especially if the shortfalls are left unaddressed.
At this time I would like to yield to my friend and colleague Mr. Skelton for any opening remarks he would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Spence can be found in the Appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me join you in welcoming our distinguished panel. We look forward to hearing from you, and what you say carries a great deal of weight with us, needless to say.
Mr. Chairman, the good news is that a few Saturdays ago the President, in his Saturday radio address, asked for or made a recommendation for increase in military spending, which, as we all are beginning to see, there is a general consensus for such a need.
He announced that there would be a $12 billion increase in this year's budget for fiscal year 2000 and $110 billion over 6 years. I understand that testimony from this panel in the Senate was to the effect that their recommendation was not $110 billion over 6 years, but $148 billion. However, they did say that a pay package is the Department of Defense budget highest priority.
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The bad news, Mr. Chairman, from my understanding of the facts, only $4 billion of the $12 billion increase this year is real money. The rest is to come from savings and reprogrammings which may prove to be illusory. It is not enough. It does not meet all the needs as outlined by the Joint Chiefs last fall. On January the 5th, General Hugh Shelton, who is with us today, said that although the President's proposed budget will not satisfy all the requirements the Chief identified to this committee last fall, it will meet our most critical needs. It will represent a major turnaround following years of decreased spending on defense.
When each of the service chiefs were put the question, how would you use additional money, what are your views on the need for increased spending above the Department of Defense recommendation, Air Force General Ryan said that, to fund readiness accounts, increase our depot overall, add funds for our people. Military housing in the United States Air Force is in great need of repair. Our base operating support for many years has been underfunded, and we need to put money against that.
The United States Marine General Krulak: Upgrade my ground equipment, then aviation equipment, my readiness in the area of operation maintenance funds, my infrastructure, and then quality of life.
Admiral Johnson of the United States Navy said: People, number one. Short-term readiness, and then I would go into modernization.
Army General Reimer said: My priorities are the same, pay and retirement, the triad, number one, for our people. Number two is to fix the NCO shortage we have in the force, improve the BASOPS and the real property maintenance that has been sacrificed over the last 14 years.
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The common thread, Mr. Chairman, in these statements by the service chiefs is the people who wear the uniform, and I commend them for that. There is a shortage in the area of recruits, in the area of retention. There are serious problems, varying between the services, but the recruiting situation is not a happy one, and in some the retention is not a good sign. There is a saying—I forget which service, maybe each of you say that you recruit individuals, but you retain families.
Mr. Chairman, I know what it is to put a military budget together. On May 22, 1996, I testified before the House Budget Committee. I had worked up a military budget which took me over a year to do. At that time I recommended a $12 billion addition for 1997, $15 billion for 1998, an additional $14 billion for 1999. Now to cover shortages from these 3 previous years, I think—I think we need an additional $20 billion real funds. The two services we know have recruitment problems, and others are stretching. The retention problems are there.
Let me give you a statistic that I obtained this morning. We recently sent the USS Enterprise to the Persian Gulf. While there doing yeoman's work in the interest of the United States, the USS Enterprise has 89 percent enlisted of the authorized billets. The Army's operation has required high personnel tempo. The Air Force pilots are leaving in droves. And I know the Marines have to work a bit harder to recruit and retain those high-standard young people that you want.
People first. We need to take care of the troops. We need to take care of their families. Pay raises, pay table reform, retirement reform, targeted bonuses. We need to authorize Thrift Savings Plan for the military. We must do a much better job in family housing and do a better job with barracks. All of these.
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The people in the uniforms that we have defending our interests throughout the world are the seed corn for our military. If they are not top-notch, if they are not well-trained or well-motivated, all that we do and the hardware that we give them is near for naught.
It is my hope, Mr. Chairman, that the work that we do in this committee this year will have as its pole star the year of the troops. We need to take care of the troops this year. We will do our part. We need an overall, comprehensive program to aid those you want to recruit and to aid those you want to keep.
We can do this, and I have good reason to think that we will do that this year. I have good reason to think that you will be proud of the end product that this committee writes and that we will take care of the troops.
But I have a challenge for each of you. We can do all of these things. We can give you the finest barracks, family housing, pay raises, change the retirement system, but we need more than that. In my various visits, particularly with senior noncommissioned officers, we need to have inspired young leadership, junior leadership in the officer corps. We need to have an inspired NCO corps of each of the services. Then I think your recruiting problems will lessen. I think that your retention problems will lessen.
If you do your job, and I charge you and I challenge you, if you do your best with the junior officers to inspire them and the NCO corps, rather than just going to work, that they look forward to their challenges every day. It is not going to be easy. Your line of work is very, very difficult. We will do our best here, so I charge you to do your best, and you will see a complete turnaround in the recruitment and retention of those young people of which we are all so proud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Skelton.
The CHAIRMAN. Let's start off with the Chairman of our Joint Chiefs, General Shelton, followed by General Reimer, Admiral Johnson, and General Ryan and General Krulak.
The floor is yours, General.
STATEMENT OF GEN. HENRY H. SHELTON, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
General SHELTON. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, distinguished Members, thanks very much for the opportunity to appear before the House Armed Services Committee and to discuss the readiness of our Armed Forces today.
At the outset, I would like to acknowledge the important role that this committee has played in keeping our readiness concern on the front burner. Your leadership, especially in the areas of compensation and retention, has been of great value and is sincerely appreciated.
As you know, there have been some significant developments since the Chiefs testified on readiness in September. On the operational front, our forces, Active, Guard and Reserve, have carried out demanding and precise military operations in Iraq on Operation Desert Fox. By every standard, the performance of our men and women in the Gulf was magnificent. The same is true of those who are still serving in the Gulf today, which I know several members of this committee just visited. They are enforcing the no-fly zones and the U.N. sanctions, and they are carrying out their duties in a very professional and first-class manner, as are all the members of our Armed Forces both at home and abroad. And I know that the Members of this committee have a very keen appreciation for the professionalism and the courage of the superb Americans who defend our Nation's interests around the globe, and we are very proud of their service.
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There have been some major developments in recent months here in Washington as well. First, since the readiness and status of forces hearings last fall, the Congress, with strong support from this committee, added $1.3 billion to our readiness accounts for fiscal year 1999. We are applying those funds to our most pressing readiness needs, addressing shortfalls in areas like recruiting, spare parts, and backlogs in depot maintenance that have been mentioned.
Just as importantly, the hearings last fall greatly contributed to the debate on what kind of resources are necessary to maintain the superb military force that we have built over the last decade. As you are aware, the President has committed to an increase in defense spending of $12 billion in 2000—more than $12 billion in 2000 and with $110 billion over the next 6 years, as mentioned by the Chairman. This commitment of resources, if approved by the Congress, will go a long way toward meeting our most critical requirements for fiscal year 2000 and in the years ahead.
By critical requirements, I mean those requirements that the Joint Chiefs and the Unified Commanders in Chief have identified as the top priorities for the execution of our national military strategy, including execution of the most demanding scenario, which is the two nearly simultaneous major theater wars.
Although the President's budget won't be delivered to the Congress for another couple of weeks, the budget that the Secretary of Defense and I will discuss in detail in February at the posture hearings, some key components are now clear. First, the budget will fund our critical readiness requirements. Second, it will allow us to achieve the procurement goals spelled out in the Quadrennial Defense Review. And third, it will provide the resources needed for essential retirement and compensation reforms.
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In short, although the President's proposed budget will not satisfy all the requirements the Chiefs identified to this Congress last fall, it will meet our most critical readiness needs, and it will represent a major turnaround following years of decreased spending on defense.
With respect to readiness, the force, as you know, remains very busy. Indeed, what has made our conduct of Operation Desert Fox even more impressive is that our forces never skipped a beat in meeting the many other commitments that we have around the world. From maintaining the peace and detaining war criminals in Bosnia, to saving and rebuilding lives in Central American nations that have been ravaged by Hurricane Mitch, to maintaining their guard along the demilitarized zone in Korea, our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen and marines have answered the call again and again in recent months.
As I noted earlier, the readiness supplemental approved by Congress in fiscal year 1999 has helped us slow the decline in near-term readiness, but has not been a cure-all. For example, mission capable rates of our aviation systems continue on a downward trend. We remain concerned by adverse trends in both recruiting and retention, as mentioned by Congressman Skelton, and we continue to grapple with the competing requirements of current readiness, modernization to assure future readiness, and providing adequate compensation and quality of life for our people.
The latter is particularly important because the true foundation of our world-class military is its people. That is why, among a number of other pressing needs, reforming military retirement and military pay remains the Joint Chiefs' highest priority as outlined very eloquently by Congressman Skelton. We cannot pay our troops too much for what they do, but we can certainly pay them too little.
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I know that these compensation initiatives have strong support among many members on this committee, and we look forward to working with all of you on these critical measures.
We must also, however, continue the effort to recapitalize the force, and the budget that the President will propose meets the QDR goals for modernization and will be a major step in the right direction. And finally we must never lose focus on the need to maintain our current readiness, especially among our forward-deployed and our first-to-fight forces, the ones who are the first ones we call on when there is a crisis.
Only America can mount an operation like Desert Fox virtually overnight, and that is because we do have a ready, forward-deployed force to defend our interests around the world, and we have additional combat-ready forces available to deploy from the United States if needed.
Mr. Chairman, we have worked hard with the White House and with OMB to ensure that the budget that the President will submit to Congress contains the funding needed to meet our most critical needs, and with this committee's help and that of the rest of the Congress, we can look forward to a future in which America continues to be the world's strongest force for peace and stability.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting the Joint Chiefs to testify on readiness today, and I look forward to your questions.
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[The prepared statement of General Shelton can be found in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF GEN. DENNIS J. REIMER, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. ARMY
General REIMER. Mr. Chairman I have a written statement that I ask be accepted for the record.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.
General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton and distinguished members of the committee, I am delighted to be here today to represent our soldiers, and I would like to focus my short remarks on readiness.
First, let me start off as the Chairman did and thank you for your support of the 1999 supplemental. From the Army's standpoint, we were able to benefit about $378 million against our most immediate readiness concerns, and we focused two-thirds of that amount to taking care of the troops and the families, and running our base operations, and providing real property maintenance for facilities in which they live and work.
We also received a contingency operation fund for Bosnia and some repair on the Korea storm damage, which we very much appreciate. Of course, there were some things that have occurred since then to include the Southwest Asia deployment and the hurricane or the tornado that hit southwest Tennessee that were not included in that.
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The 1999 supplemental helped enormously. As I said, it was very much appreciated and very much needed. But the readiness challenge that we face in the United States Army is not something that can be addressed in a 1-year budget. We continue to assess all indicators, and I would like to spend just a minute to give you my analysis of where we are in this particular area, in three areas.
First is manning. This is probably the most problematic because it is a complex equation associated with recruiting, retention, and attrition.
In terms of recruiting, 1998 was a difficult year for the United States Army. While the Active component essentially met their Active component goal, the United States Army Reserve fell short in terms of the number of people that they enlisted, and the Army National Guard fell short in two out of three of the quality indicators.
Retention across the Army is doing fairly well, but we are concerned about some really tough groups, the captains in particular, because they are the seed corn. They are so critical to our future, and we are seeing an increase in terms of the number that are leaving the Army. There are other spot shortages that we continue to be concerned about.
Attrition is too high. Today, attrition is running somewhere between 38 to 40 percent in terms of first term attrition. We have to bring that down. We are working on it, and we are trying to do so without reducing and lowering our standards.
The second area is training. Training is key, in my opinion, to near-term combat readiness. 1998 was one of the toughest years that we have experienced in the Army, and we knew that going in because the funding was such that the people in the field were experiencing shortage of people, dollars, and time based upon the busy schedule that they were keeping.
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1999 is slightly better thanks to the supplemental. By applying the Army portion that you gave us to BASOPS, we should be able to reduce the pressure in terms of migrating funds from OPTEMPO or training accounts into our BASOPS, and I believe that 1999 will be a much better training area.
As we look around, the forces command in the continental U.S. is getting back to a robust home training station program. Europe is settling down now that most of the weight of Bosnia has been taken off of their back, and they are going back into a normal retune training schedule for them. And the Pacific continues to be highly engaged and I think very well trained.
The third area is modernization, and of course that is the future readiness. We have fine-tuned our modernization program to reflect the Force 21 change processes, and we have made some very fundamental changes in that area because we are moving into the Information Age.
As you sum up these three areas, the Army end finance requirement is about $5 billion per year above and beyond the triad pay package that we have already talked about. Overall, I would say in the Army there is a very delicate balance between near and future readiness, and I am encouraged by the President's commitment to find the funds we need to fix the problems in 2000 and in the outyears.
Finally, let me just say that over Christmas time I visited our troops in Bosnia, and I just want to give you a report. I know some of you were also there. But I found the morale to be very high, and I was extremely proud of what our soldiers were doing, as I always am. This is my fourth visit to Bosnia since we have been there.
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I will make just a couple of points. Clearly that is a total Army effort. We have had over 15,000 Reserve component soldiers serve supporting that operation or in that operation in Bosnia. And the progress is evident everywhere you go in terms of the quality of life for our soldiers and in terms of improving the quality of life for the people in Bosnia, and I thank the members of the committee for your support in that particular area.
The soldiers there were very excited about the pay package. That was something that enthused them a great deal, and they look forward to that, and I would urge the members of the committee for your prompt and full support of that pay package.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Reimer can be found in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF ADM. JAY L. JOHNSON, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Admiral.
Admiral JOHNSON. Congressman Skelton, distinguished members of the committee, I, too, am grateful for the opportunity to appear once again before this committee and would ask, Mr. Chairman, that my formal statement be submitted into the record.
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The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. The same goes for—all the other statements will be submitted for the record.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, sir.
The Navy, too, is grateful for the support given to us in the 1999 supplemental, and I would just assure the committee that we, too, applied it to our most pressing readiness needs, and in our case the amount was about $276 million so applied.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to briefly touch a few points about our great Navy. First of all, OPTEMPO continues to be very high. Over half of our ships are deployed, over one-third of them forward-deployed every day. And we are carrying out those missions with a force today of 325 ships.
Readiness. Deployed readiness continues to be satisfactory, though we are presently challenged by personnel shortages. I believe the Navy's performance in Operation Desert Fox is a proud example that the tip of the spear is still very sharp, and I know some of you who have just been there can attest to that. However—however, we are attaining that level of readiness still comes at a price which puts too much burden on our people and at a time which is too late in the Inter Deployment Training Cycle. The readiness bathtub you have heard me talk of before is still way too deep.
Example: We talked about Enterprise—Mr. Skelton talked about Enterprise. Enterprise attained deployment readiness only days prior to deployment, and that is too late.
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In recruiting and retention, indeed we still have serious challenges. You know we missed our mark in recruiting by almost 7,000 last year. For fiscal year 1999, I am happy to report that the first quarter recruiting numbers were met, though I will tell you that those were fairly easy months as the year goes, and indeed, next month we enter the most difficult time of the year, the February, March, April, May recruiting challenge. We have serious concerns. Our beginning-of-the-year delayed entry pool, the surge tank which starts the year in the 40th percentile for us, started at 28 percent, and it will be a challenge to cure that in fiscal year 1999.
In retention, enlisted we are running 8 to 10 percent below requirements first-, second- and third-termers. And we are also—and this is important—we are also seeing a significant increase in the number of short-term extensions being executed, which means that our sailors are taking a wait-and-see attitude before making career commitments. They want to see what we deliver this year.
In the officer communities, I still have major concerns across all the warfare specialties. And I, too, would add my strongest possible plea for your support to the triad of pay raise, pay table reform, and Redux repeal. The sooner we can get that signal in the air, the more it will help us recruit and retain the quality force we need.
Navy requirements. We need topline relief to sustain the Navy our country needs. The amount to fully meet our requirements is $6 billion a year, and that does not include the pay and retirement initiatives. I, too, am encouraged by and appreciative of the support we are receiving, as the Chairman and General Reimer indicated. That is a significant step forward, particularly when it is underpinned with the pay and retirement initiatives for our people.
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In summary, Mr. Chairman, my number one short-term concern: taking care of our people. Pay, retirement, OPTEMPO, stability at home. My number one long-term concern: building enough ships and enough aircraft to recapitalize the force we know we need. And once again, we ask for your support.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the committee and look forward to your questions, sir.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Johnson can be found in the appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. General Ryan.
STATEMENT OF GEN. MICHAEL E. RYAN, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. AIR FORCE
General RYAN. Chairman Spence, Congressman Skelton and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with the Congress of the Air Force's readiness on behalf of the men and women of the United States Air Force.
I want to thank the Congress for rapidly responding to the readiness needs that we described last year. With your support the increase in the 1999 readiness funding certainly helps to address some of our immediate readiness concerns.
Today, your Air Force is engaged around the globe; 95,000 airmen stationed or deployed overseas protecting our Nation's interests in Korea, in combat operations over Iraq, such as Desert Fox, enforcement operations in Bosnia, and counterdrug operations in the Caribbean and humanitarian lift and engineering support for such tragedies as Hurricane Mitch.
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They are doing all we ask of them, but I have to tell you that their readiness is very fragile, and the indicators are not good.
We have experienced an overall 18 percent degradation in readiness rates of our major operational units since 1996. Of great concern is our stateside combat unit readiness. Because of how we prioritize our resources, they are a leading indicator of the direction readiness is heading in the Air Force. They have dropped 56 percent since 1996, and half of that drop has occurred in this last year. I am deeply concerned about the long-term effects these trends will have on the force.
With a progressively aging fleet of aircraft and underfunding in readiness accounts, our people are working harder and harder to cope with their vital missions. We must end that downward spiral of readiness. We need to fund the required spares. We need to rehabilitate our older but useful equipment like C–5s and C–130s, and we need to replace the systems that are approaching the end of their operational life such as the F–15/C.
We must continue to provide our people with the equipment and training to do the dangerous missions we ask them to do. My greatest concern, however, remains with our people, who are our most vital resource. Our airmen without any doubt are the most critical component of readiness. The Air Force requires motivated, professional, highly skilled and highly trained people do its mission. We are absolutely committed to recruiting and retaining the highest caliber of people.
But we continue to face recruiting challenges, and we are losing too many of our experienced people, both enlisted and officers. This fiscal year we have missed our recruiting goals in the first 2 of the 3 months. That has not happened to the Air Force in a very long time. 1998 was the first year since 1981 that we did not meet our reenlistment goals in all three reenlistment categories, first-termers, second-termers and career. As you know, second-term reenlistments are crucial because they are our midlevel technical experts and our leaders.
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Last year I testified that pilot retention was a major concern. Today in the Air Force we are over 800 pilots short of our requirement. The final numbers for fiscal 1998 are in, and only 27 percent of the eligible pilots accepted the pilot bonus for continuation in the Air Force. We need 50 percent to sustain the force. Last year for every two pilots we trained, three separated.
Three months into this fiscal year we see some better news. Of the first 20 percent of those pilots eligible, 45 percent have committed. This is a small sample size, but it also may indicate that the message from the leadership, both in the administration and Congress, is getting through, and that is that we all appreciate their service and are committed to improving their conditions of service. That is why equitable pay and restoration of the retirement system are so important. They are visible commitments to our people that we care about their welfare, and we care very much about how much and how well they perform the missions for this Nation.
All of us will have to dedicate ourselves to improving these conditions. It will have to be a sustained commitment. In the case of the Air Force we have said we need, over and above fixing the retirement system and the pay system, an increase of $5 billion a year. We think that is vitally necessary to turn around the readiness declines we have seen in the last few years.
Thank you for inviting me to speak on behalf of the dedicated men and women of the Air Force who so proudly and selflessly serve for all of us, and I will be happy to take your questions.
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
[The prepared statement of General Ryan can be found in the appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. General Krulak.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES C. KRULAK, COMMANDANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General KRULAK. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, distinguished members of the House Armed Services Committee, it is indeed an honor to be here today. I will be very brief. First, I want to thank each one of you for what you have done for my individual marines. Whether that goes from the gortex on their back to the boots on their feet, I appreciate it. I can assure you that they do.
My testimony in front of this committee will not change. It has not changed since 1995. Your Marine Corps is ready. Dial 911, we will go, we will fight, we will win. But as I have said for 4 years, that readiness comes at a price, and the price has been and continues to be modernization of the force.
I would ask the committee to not get lost in this idea of near-term readiness, as we fix our O&M accounts with dollars and merely scrape off the skin of a skin cancer and allow long-term readiness to metastasize in the body. The long-term readiness I am talking about is the modernization of the Armed Forces of the United States of America and their infrastructure.
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I thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Krulak can be found in the appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, all of you.
Let me put this whole thing in perspective by asking kind of a simple question. It might have two parts to it. First of all, I would like for each of you to indicate whether or not the President's upcoming budget satisfies the unfunded requirements each of you has identified previously.
If it does not, please provide us a ballpark figure of about how much additional funding it would require in fiscal year as you are putting it, 2000, and across the 6-year plan to meet your unfunded requirements.
And the second part of the question is, assuming that every dollar of the assumed savings built in the President's budget will be realized, which I personally doubt to be the case, therefore I would like for each to you comment on what the situation will be like with each of your 6-year programs if the assumed savings do not materialize.
General Reimer.
General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, let me address it from the standpoint of 2000 as I understand the budget. It does not meet the $5 billion that I mentioned in my verbal remarks. Ballpark figurewise I think it is about $2.6 billion short of the $5 billion mark. If we were unable to meet the $5 billion UFR, unfinanced requirements, that I mentioned, then the Army position would be that we would solve the problem of taking care of our troops, making sure they are trained properly now, and we will have to defer maintenance a little bit longer than we would like. Again, that gets at the delicate balance between near-term and long-term readiness, but I think that is the only approach that we can take in the Army.
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Mr. HUNTER. Does that include personnel cost, the $5 billion?
General REIMER. No, above and beyond the personnel costs, the pay costs.
The CHAIRMAN. And then if the savings don't materialize as projected, what would that do to the figure you have given?
General REIMER. Well, I think your comment initially was that $4 billion of that $12 billion is new money, and $8 billion is the savings. If that does not materialize, then I am not sure where we would end up, because we are counting on all $12 billion of that to materialize to give you the numbers that I just gave you.
The CHAIRMAN. Uh-huh.
Admiral JOHNSON. And for us, Mr. Chairman, you know that we do not have those numbers yet, but my sense of it is that we would apply—we would apply that plus-up as I have described before. Six billion plus the people cost is the total requirement. But we would focus indeed on the people. We would focus on the near-term readiness. We would focus on the modernization and procurement. But I must tell you that any delta between what the total requirement is and what we end up receiving will come down to not sufficiently resourcing things like our infrastructure, and our modernization needs will suffer as well. Since 1990, we have decreased our investment in modernization in the Navy by 50 percent. I want to get back from that, and if we don't get the full amount, I will have trouble doing that.
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Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Admiral Johnson to give his best judgment on the shortfall, please, in dollars and cents?
Admiral JOHNSON. I'm sorry.
Mr. SKELTON. Put that in dollars and cents in your best judgment today.
Admiral JOHNSON. I am not even sure I can give you what you are looking for. I mean, $12 billion, I would guess, my—my personal guess on that would be we would end up with something like $3 billion of that.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. All right.
Mr. TALENT. Mr. Chairman, just to yield. I think we are all writing this down. Just to clarify, so if your best guess was that you would get $3 billion, then the shortfall would be, in your best guess, $3 billion plus the people costs.
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. TALENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry to interrupt.
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Admiral JOHNSON. The total Navy requirement is $6 billion per year plus the pay and retirement.
General RYAN. Our best guess is we get about half of what we have asked for, and that is $5 billion over and above the Redux and the personnel cost. So a shortfall of about 2-1/2 billion.
What would the impact of that be? It would first affect us in people, infrastructure, and modernization accounts. We would have to delay our continued real property maintenance requirements that are growing day by day. It would mean that some of our military family housing we would not be able to pursue. It would mean that some of our modernization programs that we ought to be buying at economical rates would not be realized; and some of the new requirements for our aircraft we could not fund.
The CHAIRMAN. General.
General KRULAK. The specifics, sir, our 2000 reported shortfall to the Department was $1.35 billion. We anticipate getting about 40 percent of that, 40 to 41 percent of the requirement. In other words, we would be short around $860, 870 million. That would just continue what I call the procurement recess that we have been undergoing. It would continue to stretch out the length of time it would take your corps to recapitalize Asian equipment.
General SHELTON. Mr. Chairman, if I can give you an overall. On 2000, the requirement was $20.1 billion. The amount as we talked about was $12.5 billion. That includes, within the $12.5 billion, economic adjustments, fuel, inflation savings that are about $3.6 billion. So that is where the challenge lies. That must come through.
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In terms of the overall for the 2000 out through the 6 years, it, the shortage, is about $30 to $40 billion. Those figures are being finalized roughly—roughly $36- to $40 billion at this point.
That funds, in the 2000 budget, $12.5 billion, what we have said that will fund, if this $3.6 billion comes through as we anticipate, is 100 percent of the personnel programs. It will fund 100 percent of the critical readiness requirements identified. It brings us up to our QDR modernization levels and really represents—in fact, comes through about $12.5 billion in real buying power for the services. Now, if the inflation doesn't come through, that is about $3.6 billion that we wouldn't. But the rest of it is internal reprogramming within the Department, and that will go into the budgets of the services.
The CHAIRMAN. Now, those figures, of course assuming that you get all the savings that you are supposed to get from all these conditions, the second part of my question was—to each of you was: What if those savings aren't materialized? What would that add to your deficit? How would it affect you in each of the years? That was the big problem.
And especially, I might add, the usual situation is that a lot of these things are deferred anyway in the budget, as I said earlier, to the outyears, and then they never seem to get here, from my experience around this place. And so that is what we are facing, we are looking right in the eye.
Mr. Skelton.
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Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I will not ask questions at this time. I will yield to Mr. Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. I thank you, gentlemen, and welcome you, gentlemen. I could follow through on those questions, but I want to open up a different type of thing.
It is nice, and you know about 2-1/2 years ago, we had a series of hearings, and this committee, believe it or not, under Mr. Bateman's chairmanship discovered this readiness problem, and we have been going on now for a couple years talking about it. You didn't make me feel any better today, to be very honest with you.
I worry—when you say people first, this committee is going to pass the pay raise. We are going to change—in my opinion, we are going to change the retirement. But do you know what? I don't really think that may make all the difference. I think we have a people problem. Do you remember, General Reimer, I told you about a year ago I think the real problem they cut you too much.
Now, we mentioned QDR as the book, so to speak. We have got to meet those targets. If my figures are right, we reduced from 1,420,000 to a 1,360,000 just for the Air Force alone. You asked in 1999 for 370,882 people, and I think you got 339,000.
What I am driving at—and this is true in the Navy. The Army got the same amount. And you, General Krulak, got your 172,000. But what is worrying me is the OPTEMPO is still going to be there. Maybe we just don't have enough people. I don't know the QDR—if you remember last year, the Senate tried to make the NDP and the QDR permanent pictures, and we kind of reversed that a little bit.
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I always believed that most of these plans were budget-driven rather than security-driven. I hate to say that because I know how the QDR was done to some degree, but I think it was too much budget-driven. I also understand the Guard and Reserve would have to cut 25,000 people to get down to that target level, again target level of QDR.
And I would like to know where we stand. Am I talking about something that is really not true? And maybe you will tell me it isn't. And did the QDR simply cut too much? And do we have any in-service studies? Do any of you in your service, have you studied what you really need?
Because what General Krulak always told us, we float Marines around on the sea, bring them back home, and they couldn't go home with their families. They have to work 12 hours a day fixing equipment. We are not going to better ourselves by this infusion of money and by pay raises, in my opinion, because the OPTEMPO is still going to be there. We are talking about another place to bomb now and other than Bosnia. So I raise that question.
And basically what makes you think that the QDR targets are the right targets? And do you have in-house studies to back that up?
General REIMER. Congressman Sisisky, first of all, let me say that I totally agree, and I don't think anybody here is saying that pay is a total answer. Nobody joins the military, I think, to get rich. There is a richness that comes from our service that is not rewarded in terms of monetary reward, and I think all of our soldiers feel that way.
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I think what is important about the pay package, though, is that it sends a very strong signal to people that we care about them, and that we know that they have sacrificed and they have served, and they served our Nation very well. So I really think it is fundamental to our whole package here, the whole thing that we are talking about.
But it is the contributions that they make. It is having fun in the military. And you are absolutely right to focus on OPTEMPO, the PERSTEMPO as we call it. This has been a very busy Army since the drawdown, and that has been part of the challenge that we have had to overcome. As we drew down the Army, the pace of operations increased.
There is no way the Army can make it without using the Guard and Reserve properly; 54 percent of the Army is in the Reserve components, Guard and Reserve. So we must find a way to use them, and we are finding ways to use them. As I mentioned, 15,000 served in Bosnia. The next generation after the 1st Cav in Bosnia, the 49th Army Division in Texas will take that. So that is part of the solution.
As far as studies, yes, we have looked at it. The QDR was based upon a study called dynamic commitment in which we took a look at the levels of the force. But I will tell you that those levels, at least from the Army standpoint, assume that we will use the Guard and Reserve more than we have done in the Cold War. That is what we are working our way through right now.
Mr. SISISKY. But you have also cut your divisions, you have lightened up on your divisions to save people; am I correct on that?
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General REIMER. Well, we have reorganized the divisions, but I would say that is not as much a cost-saving function as it is to do some fixing with some enablers as we get into the information age. That is not a cost savings. I think that gives you the same capability. I think it makes them less heavy and more deployable and gets in the power projection business that we are in right now. But the number of divisions, yes; a total of 18 divisions, 10 Active and 8 National Guard.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would add, Mr. Sisisky, that relative to the people piece, I am with General Reimer. And I really sincerely mean this. I believe that it is so important that we deliver for them this year, that it alone enables everything else to happen. In other words, if we don't take care of that, I think we are really going to hurt ourselves in trying to sustain even a QDR force. I really believe that. And my input whenever I go to the fleet tells me exactly that. It is back to the business of the short-term extensions. It is back to how hard they are working. It is lots of things. We have got to fix the people part this year, and I know you know that.
But having said that, I will tell you also that, for us, this is the year when we are essentially at our QDR force. We will be at 372,000 Active this year. Our QDR number brings us down to about 369,000 by 2003. We are almost there. We are essentially there.
Why do I bring that up? Because the illusive word ''stability'' may become more operative now. What I believe for the Navy is most important is not the deployed OPTEMPO, it is the nondeployed side of our houses, our lives. It is this bathtub I keep talking about. That is where we are working people too hard. The quality of life is not good. And we have got to turn that around if we are to have a chance at keeping that force.
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I believe we can do that. And that is where money helps tremendously, because, quite frankly, and you know us as a rotational force, we push everything forward. We push it forward to keep the tip of the spear sharp. In so doing, in a flat top-line environment, we end up hurting ourselves at home, and that is precisely what happens. The troops feel that. We have got a lot of work in place right now to fix it. I am confident that if we can do that and take care of the pay, that will put us a long way toward stabilizing the force.
General SHELTON. Congressman Sisisky, I think you hit the third leg of another triad, and that is the reason that people—the top three reasons that people decide to leave the certain: pay, retirement, and PERSTEMPO.
Let me address what we tried to do on PERSTEMPO because each of the gentleman at this table have a role in that, and we tried to carry out our duties in that regard.
Starting with the global force management policy in which we identify the high-demand, low-density units that we have, it ranges from things like the AWACS in the Air Force right down to some special forces types of units in the Army. So we manage both units as well as platforms. U–2 is another example because of the crew shortages in the U–2s, so we manage those. That means that, before we will deploy one of those, if they—if they have already been deployed more than the service goal for that particular platform, which ranges from 120 days to 180 days per year depending on the service, then it comes up through the—first we look for a substitute to see if there is some other platform or some other type of unit. We go through a long consideration looking for other ways not to do it. And, finally, it gets up to the Secretary of Defense for approval because there is no other option before we will break the PERSTEMPO on that type of unit. That helps us add some predictability and management.
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We also, as mentioned by General Reimer, have used the Reserve components more and more wherever they have capabilities that we can employ at an increasing rate. The Reserves have contributed and have done a superb job, the Guard and the Reserve.
We cut the joint exercises. We, in coordination with the CINCs over the last 3 years, the joint exercises have been reduced by 15 percent, and another 10 percent will be off by next year; about a 25 percent reduction focusing on quality, really hard on quality versus the quantity to try to reduce the PERSTEMPO. We use—making more and more use to prepare to deploy.
You saw last year the large buildup we had in the Gulf. The last two times that we reacted to Saddam, we did not have to use what we call the CONUS crisis response force. When we redeployed that force back to CONUS, we put it in a prepare to deploy status. It can move very quickly and move back into the area, but it doesn't have to stay there built up in the Gulf in order to help us carry out whatever the decision is that we do.
We have some service initiatives, as I indicated. The Navy has—Admiral Johnson has reduced the admin requirements on people when they are back in a nondeployed status, inspections and things that take them away from their families. And General Ryan can talk to his air expeditionary force, which again was designed to add predictability and cut back on the PERSTEMPO. So we have really tried to work this piece of it very hard.
General RYAN. For the Air Force, we think we are at about the right manpower level. We just need to use our manpower better. And part of that has to do with our air expeditionary force concept, which allows us to be predictable in when our forces will be needed and what configuration they will be needed, packaged to deploy, trained to task, and ready.
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And those who are not on the bubble at that time know that—when their schedule will come up so that we give some predictability and stability to the force. We think that is as important as the OPTEMPO for our people, and that is what they tell us. They want predictability in their lives.
Sure, if the big one comes, they are going to be there and be ready to go, but it is the day-to-day OPTEMPO, that they want to know when they are going to be gone and when they will be home.
The issue for them, quite honestly, is how their families are taken care of while they are gone. Of all the issues we have, as we discussed before, this is a family decision to stay in the military service. And if the families are well taken care of while they are gone, they will do anything we ask them to do.
General KRULAK. Let me take just a different tack, sir. The world is changing so rapidly. I mean, we are going into a world of chaos. I appreciate what my friend General Ryan says, but predictability is not going to be able to be there. The reality is chaos will bring unbelievable requirements on this country to move very rapidly to certain areas where we may just have, you know, a handful of American citizens in danger. But you must go there because they are Americans.
The idea that we are going to be able to pick and choose is not going to be a valid idea. Therefore, in the Corps, we are starting in about 2 weeks running an intensive force structure planning group effort to take one more look at our force structure based against a world of chaos, against an enemy that is going to be asymmetric and not symmetric in nature.
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The issue of what they do when they come back, very similar to Admiral Johnson, our concern and the reason we think that money may help a little bit is what they are doing when they are back certainly in the Marine Corps is repairing equipment that is 20 and 30 years old, 10 to 12 years older than its life expectancy. So if we can get them some new gear, it would just be like working on a car. If you have a 30-year-old car, you spend more time fixing it.
So the two come together, in my opinion, in this idea of the cancer that has metastasized versus this skin cancer of today's readiness.
General RYAN. Let me clarify one thing that my little green friend here said.
General KRULAK. Little? Little?
General RYAN. It has to do with predictability. It is not predictability we are looking for in the world out there. It is the predictability of who will be on call to respond to that crisis. We think that is important.
General KRULAK. I hope you can do it. If you can, tell me.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Stump.
Mr. STUMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple quick questions of General Ryan, if I could.
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General, you mentioned in your statement while the bonuses have not—they have somewhat slowed, the pilot decline down, they have not turned around the retention problem. Do you foresee the need for additional bonuses towards the end of this pilot's career to help solve this problem?
General RYAN. We have only seen a very small sample of this turnaround. I hate to predict that it is a turnaround, but I am looking for any branch. I think we have to continue and to look at aviation service across the board to make sure that we reward the people who serve in those high-demand skills throughout their career.
The Congress was very helpful last year in increasing the aviation incentive pay beyond the 14-year bonus point, 15-year bonus point. I am not sure that more bonuses are the answer. In some ways, that divides our force, our skilled pilot force, from our others who fly with them. But I am not sure the bonuses are the answer. I think it is all the other intangibles out there, the quality of life, quality of mission, quality of equipment, capability to perform your mission when you are asked to, and a feeling of success when you do.
Mr. STUMP. A while back, after talking with you, I tried to put some language in the defense bill this time that didn't survive the conference that would have required the Air Force, FAA, and the airlines to sit down together to try to resolve this problem. What about the thought of some national pilot program to reduce the draw on our military pilots? Would something like that help?
General RYAN. Yes, sir. I think that all of us believe that the pilot force is a national resource, because production takes so long to produce a competent pilot. I think that would be very helpful.
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Mr. STUMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the Chiefs for being with us today.
Admiral Johnson, I want to thank you for your successful effort in securing additional funding for the Navy's mine warfare mission in next year's budget, an increase of $316 million.
You know, after our devastating experience with mines in the Persian Gulf War, we thought the Navy brass would have given more permanent priority to the deployment of mine hunting and sweeping equipment. But while research has flourished to the tune of $1.2 billion expenses in 1992, deployment has been slow. So I am glad to see that the Navy is at least going to champion this important mission, and I want to thank you for that.
I know that General Shelton shares your interest. He asked him about—for a robust mine warfare capability. And I encourage you, both of you, to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that we don't let this mission get away from us again. With mine warfare requirements fully funded over the next 5 years, there is no reason why we should not be able to deploy sooner rather than later.
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And, General Reimer, two of the readiness concerns that keep coming up are logistic support and base operations. Army Materiel Command, which is responsible for the Army's logistics support, is meeting with a very, you know, cut—a tremendous cut, different from the other services, in its share of personnel reduction. And I would hope that some of the additional money that would be directed in the Army in the next President's budget could be applied to ensuring that the Army Materiel Command has enough people to perform all of these logistic support missions.
Also is my understanding that the additional funds the Congress provided this year for base operations, Army Materiel Command was not provided any additional base operation funds, and I would hope this situation could be remedied through a reprogramming or some other means because the Army was hard hit with cuts, and they play a very important role in our Army, and I hope that we can find a way to fix this problem.
I don't have any questions, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to point this out.
Thank you very much for you all being here with us today.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. Hunter.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, gentlemen, welcome. And thank you for your summaries with respect to how much in terms of funding you need, and I think we need to get right to that, because that is what we are all about early on is trying to set a budget.
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And as I understand now, excluding—excluding pay and retirement, that is the people side, General Reimer, you said that you need an extra $5 billion per year; is that right?
General REIMER. That was the total, yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. And I presume that is—that you have looked at that and you think you are going to need an extra $5 billion for the next several years. That is not a one-time—you are not catching up; that is how much you need in increments?
General REIMER. The testimony was $5 billion per year; yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. And, Admiral Johnson, same with your $6 billion.
Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct.
Mr. HUNTER. And, General Ryan, yours was what?
General RYAN. $5 billion a year.
Mr. HUNTER. $5 billion.
And General Krulak.
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General KRULAK. Sir, ours fluctuates. If we can get enough in the early years, then we can move the procurement of our modernization equipment forward. But it ends up to be about $1.7 billion a year.
Mr. HUNTER. $1.7 billion. If I can ask the staff to bring up—I have just got a little board here. I think it is important to get everybody on the same sheet of music. If you can take that down to General Krulak. He's got the lowest figure. This is a Hall of Fame wrestler here.
General Krulak, if you could put—if you would take that over to the General, I would ask the staff, could you just mark down what you need there, because we are going to be putting this budget together. I think it is important to get all these cards in before we start doing this budget.
Mr. TALENT. If the gentleman will yield, my suggestion is you invest in a little desktop publishing.
Mr. HUNTER. Put your initials there, General Krulak.
General KRULAK. You don't have to worry about me, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. And that is without people. That is not the people aspect.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. I would like to know if Mr. Hunter has taken on another job working for the Price is Right.
Mr. HUNTER. Well, the problem is we have been opening the doors in the last several years. There hasn't been anything at all behind them.
General Ryan, your figure was $5 billion. And that does not include the people aspect.
Admiral Johnson, if you could do the same. Yours was $6 billion.
While he is doing that, General Reimer is filling out his, General Shelton, what is the number of the people base; that is to say, to fix the retirement system and a big piece of this 13 percent pay increase or pay disparity?
General SHELTON. Would you like that in 2000 or across the 6 years?
Mr. HUNTER. What will it be across the 6 years, and what is the chunk in 2000.
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General SHELTON. It is $34.5 billion across the 6 years, and personnel for 2000, it is $2.4 billion.
Mr. HUNTER. Why are you taking such a small chunk early? It is $30.0 billion across the 6 years. It is almost $6 billion a year.
General SHELTON. Because the Redux figures the people retiring, that doesn't kick in until 2006. They won't have 20 years in the service, those that came in after 1986, until 2006. That is when it kicks in.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
General SHELTON. So it is heavy in the outyears.
Mr. HUNTER. Can I ask the staff to hand that to General Shelton.
I have one more question for you, General Shelton. DOD-wide increases, isn't there a DOD-wide number that is not attributable to any service in terms of increase.
General SHELTON. Right. The civilian, for example, the civilian pay has to be included in that as well.
Mr. HUNTER. I am not talking about just pay, but the aspect of increases. Each of the services has given us their increase. Is there a DOD-wide increase that is also needed above and beyond the present budget blueprint?
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General SHELTON. I do not have those figures, no. I know what the services are. But any external to the services, I am not aware of what the figures are.
Mr. WELDON. Would the gentleman yield? Obviously that must include missile defense.
Mr. HUNTER. That was the next question is you have got missile defense. The President has said he is going to spend $7 billion on in terms of national missile defense.
General SHELTON. I would have to check and provide you an answer in terms of whether or not the top number I just gave you—I am sure it does.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. General Ryan, is that included in your Air Force estimate, missile defense?
General RYAN. National missile defense.
Mr. HUNTER. That is not part of your $5 billion?
General RYAN. There are pieces of the Air Force budget that do national missile defense, SBIRS program, et cetera, but those are internal to the Air Force budget and included in the $5 billion.
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Mr. HUNTER. That doesn't include the $7 billion increase that the President mentioned the other day.
General RYAN. No.
Mr. HUNTER. So that is external to that.
Okay. General Shelton, I just ask you to add those up just there—it looks like you have got $16 billion, $17.75 billion, right? You have you have got $17.75 billion. And you are only going to go with about 2-1/2 billion in terms of the fix for pay in the first year?
General SHELTON. $2.4 billion.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So that's how much, 20 point—
General SHELTON. The total for the first year is 20.1.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. $20.1 billion. The President has offered $4 billion from real dollars and $8 billion in projected savings, right, for a total—for a total of $12 billion?
General SHELTON. Right.
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Mr. HUNTER. So the President's budget is $8 billion short of what you need; is that right?
General SHELTON. Not $8.5 billion in projected savings. The point I was trying to make a while ago, there is about $3 billion in projected savings based on—$3.6 billion based on fuel and inflation savings. There is also $3.1 billion incremental MILCON, internal reprogramming to bring DOD in line with the rest of the Federal Government in terms of how we fund MILCON.
Mr. HUNTER. My question, though, if you are going to build that MILCON at some point in the future, you are going to have to pay for it.
General SHELTON. And that is included in the programs.
Mr. HUNTER. So what you are doing is you are put pushing some expenditures off into the future with that money. Let us say it is not hard money up front. It is not an additional $8 billion in real dollars this year, right?
General SHELTON. It is buying power in terms of the money that will go to the services, yes.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Let's give the President the benefit of the doubt and say that he has got $12 billion in real money that we are going so see. How much is he short, then, of what your services need? $8.1 billion; is that right?
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General SHELTON. Right. The total for the services.
Let me go back to another question that you had, and that was how much of that is nonservice-related? The total nonservice request included is $8.3 billion out of the $51—54.9 billion.
Mr. HUNTER. Now, that is the DOD-wide nonservice numbers.
General SHELTON. Nonservice request within DOD.
Mr. HUNTER. How much is that per year?
General SHELTON. I don't have it broken down per year.
Mr. HUNTER. But it is over how many years? You have got how much of that is DOD-wide? 8 point—
General SHELTON. Are you referring to 2000?
Mr. HUNTER. Yeah. How much of that is a reasonable amount to attribute to this year for trying to fix our deficiencies?
General SHELTON. If you look at this year, the total of $20.9 billion includes about a—as I read this, about $1 billion for this year, for 2000.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So that is an extra billion dollars that we are going to have to come up with, right?
General SHELTON. Right.
Mr. HUNTER. So that means it is—instead of $20.1 billion, it is $21.1 billion.
General SHELTON. No. That is included in $20.1 billion.
Mr. HUNTER. It is included in $20.1 billion. Okay. So you have got $8.1 billion deficiency reflected in the President's numbers; is that right?
General SHELTON. From the total requirements, right. So multiply the services plus the pay and allowances and the contingency funds.
Mr. HUNTER. I understand. So I guess my last question to you is: This extra money, the extra part of that hundred and some billion that you have talked about, you mentioned that as a commitment. Obviously everything except these next 2 years is going to be put together by a different President; is that right?
General SHELTON. [Nodding in the affirmative.]
Mr. HUNTER. How can you characterize money that is going to have to be provided by a different President whose identity we don't even know as a commitment from President Clinton?
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General SHELTON. All I can tell you, Congressman Hunter, is we have been assured that they will support—the administration supports the $110 billion plus across the FYDP.
Mr. HUNTER. But it is going to be a different administration, right?
General SHELTON. We certainly understand that.
Mr. HUNTER. So there is no guarantee legislatively or—there is no way the President can extend through his Presidential powers in any way, a commitment over a future President who hasn't even been identified yet; is that right?
General SHELTON. I wouldn't attempt to say that you are wrong, Congressman Hunter. All I can tell you is we have to deal with the incumbent President and the incumbent Commander in Chief as his commitment to the Department of Defense.
Mr. HUNTER. Can you explain, is there any way that you know of which he can legally commit a future President to a defense blueprint that he lays out, that you know of?
General SHELTON. I think he can lay out a blueprint. We all realize that a subsequent administration would have to sign up to it.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So he can't commit a future administration to the blueprint legally; is that right?
General SHELTON. He commits the administration to it. Whatever the following administration decides to do will be the prerogative of the President at the time.
Mr. HUNTER. So the rest of that hundred billion is a suggestion to a future administration, isn't it?
General SHELTON. I would call it a commitment.
Mr. HUNTER. It is what?
General SHELTON. I would call it a commitment.
Mr. HUNTER. From him?
General SHELTON. From him and from the administration, from OMB.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. But it is not one that they can enforce, is it?
I think we need to make this clear. The American people think this President can commit $100 billion out in the year 2003, and he is not going to be here.
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General SHELTON. I think the important thing, Congressman Hunter, is the Commander in Chief has listened to these gentlemen at this table, he has listened to our CINCs. He understands that the defense needs to be plused up. He has acknowledged that we need to—
Mr. HUNTER. General, I will grant you that. What I am saying is, and I am asking you to give me your opinion on it, he doesn't have the ability to legally commit a President in a future administration to follow his plan. He has no control over a future President, does he? Does he?
General SHELTON. I guess it is like in the military, when you pass the flag, you are out. But certainly you have a legacy there that you—that you try to live up to.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. When this President gave us the procurement budget, the section of your DOD budget that dealt with procurement 5 years ago, he had the 1999 procurement at almost $60 billion. That was the modernization account. As the next year went and he had his 5-year blueprint, the 1999 procurement budget went down to about 1956. Then it went to 1954. And when the rubber met the road, when we got to the year in which we are actually going to spend it, it was about $48 billion, right?
General SHELTON. That is correct. And as you know we internally have had to do a lot of programming, taking out of that in order to fix current readiness. So it wasn't that the blueprint was wrong, and the goal initially in the year would normally be to try to achieve that particular goal, but as you try to meet various contingencies and maintain your current readiness, take care of your quality of life, you have to move money from that account in order just to make it from day to day, particularly for installation commanders where you have got leaking roofs and things of that type.
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Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One item that has been mentioned as an addition perhaps to the retirement program generally for members of the military would be to establish provisions whereby they could participate voluntarily if they wish in a 401(k) kind of program where they could invest or defer taxes on some of their income and put that into a savings plan that would be available for them at a later date.
This would be particularly attractive to people who may want to be in the military for 8, 10, 12 years, but then plan to leave. That would be something that they would accumulate. Under the system today they wouldn't get—or wouldn't have anything when they left in the way of retirement. How do you feel about moving ahead with that kind of voluntary program?
General SHELTON. Congressman Pickett, I will let each of the services speak to that. From my perspective, I think, as the President mentioned last night in terms of generally in America, anything that encourages savings I think is to be encouraged. Certainly anything that would assist our servicemen and women and encourage them to save would be welcome. I personally would not like to see any type of a program like that as a substitute for a retirement system, per se. I think that would be wrong.
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Mr. PICKETT. That is not the intention. This would be a voluntary program that a military member would be eligible to participate in on a voluntary basis.
General SHELTON. Yes, sir. Anything I think that encourages savings, from my perspective, would be welcome, but I will let the service chiefs speak to it.
General REIMER. I would agree, Congressman, as long as it does not do away with retirement.
Mr. PICKETT. It is not intended to be in lieu of anything. It is in addition to, not in lieu of.
Admiral JOHNSON. It is very much on the minds of the men and women in the Navy. I am sure you have heard that from them. I hear it all the time. But I must, with my shipmates here, stress that we have got to get this triad of initiatives first and foremost. And this—if this would be complementary to that, I would be behind it 1,000 percent.
General RYAN. If it is over and above, we would be with you.
Mr. PICKETT. General Krulak.
General KRULAK. Yes, sir.
Mr. PICKETT. The other question I have, gentlemen, relates to the relationship between your strategic programs that you have—for example, I know the Navy has got the Trident sub program and a ballistic missile defense program. The Army has got a ballistic defense program and is deeply involved in chemical/biological warfare. And the Air Force has got the space program, ballistic missile defense, and their own offensive missile program as strategic programs.
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Now, what, if any, changes in these programs, if made, could impact favorably on your having funds available that may be freed up as a result of changing the commitment to do other things in your own service?
Admiral JOHNSON. I would be happy to start with that one, sir. Just—you mentioned the SSBMs, our strategic submarines, and the theater ballistic missile defense. Relative to your question, sir, I would tell you that—and you know the SSBM force, we are still at a force level mandate until we get ratification of START II. It may be that, when that happens, additional funds would give us more options as to downrange utilization of those four SSBMs that would come out of the force by the present plan.
The theater ballistic missile defense, I would just tell you that I would believe that more funding applied to our theater program, for instance, would serve, hopefully, to accelerate that program closer from the program of record in 2010 to maybe 2007 or even 2005.
General REIMER. You mentioned two areas in our area, Congressman. First of all, the theater missile defense, that is being handled by the Ballistic Missile Defense Office; and, therefore, the $5 billion that I talked about in terms of the unfunded requirement does not include ballistic missile defense. It is a very important priority. And I know the Secretary of Defense talked about that today at his press conference.
As far as the chemical—the chemical piece of it in terms of defensive posture and improving our defensive capabilities as well as the chemical, biological, and detection command who is doing a lot in terms of going around with the cities and providing training as first responders, that would be included in our $5 billion.
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Mr. PICKETT. Thank you.
General RYAN. Sir, you mentioned the strategic missile force, particularly Peacekeeper, which is also tied up, as Tridents are, in the START II policy decisions. But if money was freed up, there is—our next frontier in space is—has a continual demand for more capability in space, and, therefore, more money put against those programs. And those are truly strategic programs because they affect all of our forces and support all of our forces.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Weldon.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming in today because I am—I could tell you this briefing has been so impressive. I sat through the speech last night about how great our country is doing. And unfortunately, I fell asleep from 10:03 until 10:04.5, which was the 90 seconds the President summarized everything you talked about today. So I missed all of this technical assessment about what our needs are in the military. And out of a speech that took 1 hour, 17 minutes, I just feel so bad that I fell asleep for that 90 seconds that all of this was outlined for the American people.
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If I sound somewhat cynical, it is because I am. I think this period of time is going to go down in history as the worst period of time in undermining the capability of our Armed Forces in this century.
None of this is new to us, gentlemen. You have heard this committee, and not Republicans alone, my good friends and colleagues on the other side and this side saying for the last 5 years that we are heading for a train wreck. This is nothing new for us. We were the ones who plused up funding for you by $10 billion 4 years ago over the President's request. And then we are told that we were feeding you money that you didn't need, all pork and waste.
We were the ones who gave you $6 billion over the President's request the following year, $3 billion the year after that. We were the ones who went to our Speaker last year and said, we won't vote for a budget unless there is a significant increase in defense spending, and you have to leverage that out of Erskine Bowles at the White House for a total of $28 billion over 4 years above what President asked for.
This is not just something that happened overnight. We saw this coming, and we said it. We saw the deployment rate go to 28 deployments in 6 years versus 10 the previous 40 years, none of them paid for, all of them having to be eaten out of modernization.
And in your summary of what your needs are right now, you didn't list missile defense. Your projection for the 5 years for BMDO is to cut the budget from $3.5 billion to $2.5 billion. And you want to build the Navy Upper Tier and Navy areawide. You want to deploy THAAD. You want to finish PAC-3 with the added costs. You want to deploy cruise missile defense systems. You want to help the Europeans with MEADS, which we said you couldn't fund 2 years ago, and you said we need it, and you put the money back in.
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And now we hear the phony malarkey today about a commitment to NMD. If there was, there wouldn't be a negotiation with the Russians to restrengthen and tighten the ABM treaty as opposed to allowing for the eventual deployment of an NMD system. It is simply to take the political cover away from the momentum building in this Congress to say that America cannot go on unprotected.
Gentlemen, we are between a rock and a hard place right now, and that is the reason why the Army had to push out the acquisition of the Comanche program that is going to cost an extra $9 billion for that aircraft. Why? Because we took the money from the Comanche to fund deployments. And that is why the Navy is now building a Navy that is closer to 200 ships than it is to 500 ships, because you take the money out of shipbuilding accounts to fund deployments.
And that is why the Air Force is fighting for a new tactical aviation replacement. In fact, you guys want us to build three, the F–22, the Joint Strike Fighter, and the F/A–18F. That would cost us according to the GAO $14 billion a year. We are spending $2.5 billion this year on TACAIR alone.
And that is why the Marine Corps' V–22, which is forcing us to fly—this is forcing us to fly CH–46 helicopters when they are 50 years old and all the maintenance goes with that are not going to be replaced by the V–22 because we are buying seven this year instead of the 24 we should be buying. But again, we pushed that program out because of the all of the shortcomings.
If I sound a little offended, I am. I am totally offended. This is no accident. This is something that just didn't come up in the last couple of months like out of the air all of a sudden we realized. It has been a deliberate denial to the American people and the Congress of reality. And now we have to pay the price for it.
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And now we are saying we have got to plus up all of this funding, which you know and I know we can't get. He is not going to get a base closing bill through this Congress because the Democrats and Republicans were burned once. They are not going to be burned again.
And so we are between a rock and a hard place to try to give you the tools that you need. And I can tell you I am offended. I am offended that last night, out of an hour and 17 minutes, I heard 90 seconds, and I timed it, from 10:03 to 10:04.5, except when he introduced that Air Force pilot to stand up so we all could applaud.
We should have had a mechanic there, General, from one of your CH–46s who is having to put all that time in to repair those 40-year-old aircraft. We should have had a Navy SEAL who has been on deployment back to back to back and hasn't been able to get home to his family. We should have had an Army soldier that has been on the ground in the Middle East and has not been able to get home. But that isn't happening. It is all smoke and mirrors, and I am not going to buy it.
And what I would say to you, gentlemen, you have the support of this committee. Every one of the members who are on my side and that side of the aisle has been here for you. All we want is a continuing policy of honesty.
When General Shalikashvili 4 years ago briefed Secretary Perry and said he needed $60 billion in the acquisition budget, we weren't even able to get those documents. We had to go to Bill Gertz from the Washington Times to get the real scoop of what your requests were in terms of your needs. That is not America. That is not America when we saw coming what is here today. We tried to deal with it. We were criticized repeatedly for putting extra money in. And now, all of a sudden, the President says, guess what, we are going to commit $110 billion. And, oh, by the way, the next President will bear the brunt of that cost; and all but $4 billion in my administration will come out of inflationary savings and reconfiguration of budgetary numbers.
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That is why I am offended. And I am not asking for any response except that—maybe I will ask for a response from each of you. What would have been the position today if this Congress had not successfully plused up $28 billion over 4 years, 99 percent of what you asked for to help each of you in the course of your activities? General Reimer.
General REIMER. I think, Congressman, we have the world's best Army today because of what you all have done. If you hadn't done that, I am not sure where we would be, but we thank you for that.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would say very much the same thing. You know, we would be—that bathtub would be deeper still, and we couldn't sustain ourselves that way.
General RYAN. Our readiness would be lower, and it would be harder to pull this airplane out.
General KRULAK. We would be the 9–1 force.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I always have the distinct pleasure of going after the gentleman from Pennsylvania. So I am going to try to ask some of his questions in a slightly different way.
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Recently someone sent me a great article written by James Webb that was a speech of his a couple of years ago. The best line in it, I thought, was, quote, it says, ''The inarguable first commandment of naval leadership is where principle is involved, repeat death to expediency.'' I think all of us, inside the service, inside the Congress, certainly in the administration, have been listening too much to expediency in a couple of ways.
But I want to ask you, gentlemen, where you stood on the following issues when it came time for the President to put together his budget proposal. I am curious if any of you said to the President: Mr. President, we are going to be in Bosnia for a long time. We are going to have about 6,000 people there. It is a new mission, and we need additional funds to pay for it.
My second question would be: Mr. President, we have got a lot of military retirees out there who feel like they have been shortchanged. In effect they have been shortchanged. They were promised free health care for life. They are not getting it. Instead of using their golden years to go out and talk to young people and tell them how great it would be to serve in the armed services, they are spending their time telling the same young people, don't do it because I got gypped.
And the third would be, in the case of force levels, I am curious if any of you said: Mr. President, how on earth can we beg young people to give up 4 years of their life, promise them to let them be all they can be, offer them a career, and then turn around on an annual basis and have the headlines in the Army Times, Air Force Times, the Navy Times read, chief recommends reduction in force.
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That's my three questions. How many of you said, Bosnia, new mission, we need new money? We have got to keep our promise to the military retirees on health care in order to have credibility when we talk to young people. The third is, how can we tell young people we want to offer you a career, spend a lot of money advertising to say so, and then in the headlines year after year is we want to shrink the force, which means we have got to let people go.
General REIMER. Congressman, I will go ahead and start. I talked to the President in a session we had most recently about the same way I mentioned it to you all in terms of people being our priority. I think he fully understood that.
As far as Bosnia, we have been in Bosnia now for over 3 years. And, no, I did not tell him initially that we need more money for Bosnia. I think it was said. I just didn't have the opportunity to tell him personally. I did tell him the last time that we talked that the Bosnia supplemental and Bosnia funding was terribly important to us, was the most important thing to us.
As far as the people issues are concerned, as I mentioned, we did talk about that.
As far as the force level, I am not sure that I said it exactly the way you said it, but I did say this is about as low as we can do and still do what we have been asked to do. If we are going to continue to put downward pressure on the force, then it is time to change military strategy, or else we are going to hollow force.
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Mr. TAYLOR. And health care, fulfilling the promise to the retirees on health care.
General REIMER. I am sorry.
Mr. TAYLOR. I know I mumble, and I apologize.
General REIMER. Yes, we did talk about health care. And we talked about the erosion of benefits for people that are over 65, and once they retire the impact it is having on the current force.
Mr. TAYLOR. But was a specific request made to come up with the funds to fulfill that promise?
General REIMER. No, I did not make a specific request, but we did talk about that issue, that that was an issue that we had to address.
Admiral JOHNSON. If I could add, Mr. Taylor, the Bosnia force level answer is essentially the same. Let me make to your middle point about the health piece the point that I think was made very clearly, and it is not apparent to everyone, is that one of the things we are finding these days is that the young men and women we are trying to bring in the front door are watching the way we treat military retirees. And I don't believe that has always been the case. It wasn't the case when I came in. That is all I can speak to with firsthand knowledge. But I can assure you it is the case now. That message was delivered and continues to be delivered loud and clear. I think it is very significant.
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Mr. TAYLOR. But, Admiral, did you ask the specific question, we have a specific problem with the retirees out there who used to be your best advocates out in the communities are now out there using their golden years to tell young people don't join; they lied to me, and they are going to lie to you?
Admiral JOHNSON. I'll be honest with you. I don't recall the exact words that were used. I don't know, honest answer. But the thrust of it was just as I recalled to you. That is my recollection.
Mr. TAYLOR. The point I am trying to make is it is not getting fixed. And I don't think it is going to get fixed until the Joint Chiefs step forward and say, these are easily identifiable problems that we want to fix on our watch. Because if you don't step forward, if it isn't in the President's mark, then Congress somehow finds the excuse not to do it. And we come back next year, and we are in the exact same position.
General REIMER. Can I come back on that, Congressman?
Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.
General REIMER. Because for 4 years—this is my fourth year on this job, and we have been testifying, and our priorities have remained the same: adequate pay, housing for individual soldiers and married soldiers, medical care for our people, and for cradle-to-grave service. And the last one is the erosion of benefits, the retirement, that type of thing. I think we have made that consistently in front of all committees and in front of the President of the United States.
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Mr. TAYLOR. But, General, if I may, since I asked the question, there are a number of programs out there, one of them that comes to mind, Medicare subvention, where there is actually a price tag attached to it, where for about $2 billion a year we can fulfill the promise at least at the base hospitals.
Again, I don't think you can expect the President of the United States and many of the people around him, none of whom have served day one in uniform, to appreciate the value of that promise or to understand the cost associated with fulfilling it. And unless the experts in our country step forward and say, Mr. President, we have a problem, we have a solution, and this is what it is going to cost, I don't think it gets fixed.
General SHELTON. Congressman Taylor, if I can comment. First of all, on Bosnia, the answer is unequivocally yes. The cost of that has been running about $1.9 billion per year, and that is the contingency that has been added not only to 2000, but each year across the FYDP. It was included in recognition that that was a continuing cost; and if it wasn't Bosnia, it probably would be some other place. Our contingencies have been running at least that much every year. And rather than have to keep coming back for supplementals, and since this is a known cost right up front, we needed to add that, and that was added.
On TriCare, I would echo what General Reimer said. That has been one of the core quality-of-life issues that we all have stressed continuously. In the last part of 1998, we met with OSD and pushed in the tank to have additional funds added to that. And as a result, $200 million was added into internal reprogramming within DOD.
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For this particular budget, this $545 billion that goes in 2000 and over $2 billion across the FYDP into the TriCare program above what had been programmed, it is very high on our priority list, and we are very much concerned about making sure that we provide not only quality care for those on active duty, but for those entitled to it once they retire as well.
Mr. SKELTON. Would the gentleman yield for just a moment? It appears to me we are all whistling Dixie unless we raise the budget caps here in Congress.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Skelton, the only point I am trying to make, and I hope I am making, is—
Mr. SKELTON. You are making a point I happen to understand and agree. But procedurally we have to have the gumption here in Congress to up the caps, which I personally would be for.
General RYAN. Congressman Taylor, with respect to Bosnia, we have programmed in our budget the amount of money that we need to continue the Bosnia contingency operations. It is there.
With respect to military retirees, as you know, at a group of our hospitals, we are doing the medical subvention. I can't tell you that I said that directly to the President, because I have not. However, we support that. We think that that is a way to go, but it only takes care of 25 percent of our population. There is another 75 percent of our military retirees, as you know, out there who wouldn't be caught up in the catchment areas that we would need some other program. And we think that is important, too.
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With respect to force levels, yes, we have said that we are at a point where we can go no further, lower in the force levels and keep the OPTEMPO that we have today and keep the strategy of two major regional contingencies and be successful at it.
General KRULAK. Sir, in answer to your question directly to the President from me: Bosnia, yes; health care, no; force levels, yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Hefley.
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, gentlemen. You know, I think this committee has the greatest respect for the five of you that you could imagine. You have risen to the top of your field, and we have great confidence in you, but I think you have heard here today a plea from many members of this committee on both sides of the aisle for you all—Duncan Hunter is exercised there and everything—for you all to level with us about what the real needs are. We don't want to hear what the needs are from the President of the United States. He doesn't know. We don't want to hear from OMB. They don't know. We want to hear from you that we regard as the experts what the real needs are. And we might not be able to meet all of those needs, but at least we will know and we can work on it.
I think Congressman Weldon pointed out, and you agreed, that had we not been plussing up, you would be in a world of hurt. And yet we have people like Senator McCain that every time we plusup a dime, he screams, ''Pork barrel spending,'' and you know the excuse he uses? The Joint Chiefs don't want it, and they didn't ask for it. That is what he says repeatedly. Well, you probably did ask for it, but it didn't get through the White House and OMB. So we need to hear from you in a very candid way what you really do need.
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You mentioned several times that people are your priority, and I would wholeheartedly agree with that. I spend a lot of time on military bases in my capacity, and last week I was visiting some, and I talked with the enlisted people, and I had probably 15 enlisted people around the table at one of these bases all the way from a year and a half time in to 18 years in. And I said, how many of you plan to make a career of it? Only one hand went up, and it was the 18-year guy, and he said, I am getting out as soon as I possibly can.
And why did they say this? Salary was mentioned most often; retirement that is no longer an appeal; the 40 percent thing, they are disappointed about that; the sorry living conditions that they have to live in. I had one chief say, I hate to go into this barracks to inspect. I am afraid I will catch bacteria. The mildew permeates the cinder block walls, and they paint it, and it comes back through. The inability to do their jobs because they do not have spare parts, and they are robbing from one airplane, what they call hangar queens—you are probably familiar with that—in order to make other airplanes fly, and that is discouraging to them. And, of course, the OPSTEMPO.
I was really discouraged, because you all have been telling me for some years that we have the finest bunch of young people you ever saw in the military. But I saw no enthusiasm for the military, and I think we have a real problem there, and I think you have touched on it here today.
Another aspect that hasn't been touched on much today I would ask the question about: that is, we are going to get in the budget as part of the savings a base closure proposal. I hope the rest of the savings are not as phony baloney as the base closing proposal savings are. Eventually we will have savings from base closure, but most of those have been pushed out way beyond what we thought. So looking at that for a short-term fix, I think we can forget it.
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But if you expect to get any kind of a base closing procedure through this Congress, I have said before and I will repeat, you need to come to us with what you have an excess of. You are the experts again. General Reimer, do you have too much maneuver ground. Tell us that? Do you have too much port space, Admiral Johnson? Tell us that is what it is. Do we have too many airfields? Do we have too many depots? So that the whole system is not thrown into chaos with rounds of base closings. You know what there is excess. Do we need to clean up around the edges? We need a picture of what it is, or I don't think we are going to trust this process again any time in the near future.
So can any of you tell me at this time, and maybe this will not be possible, but can you tell me beginning with General Reimer what you think in the Army and the Navy and so forth you have too much excess of in terms of base facilities?
General REIMER. Congressman, I would not say that we have too much—excess maneuver space. I would say we probably have excess infrastructure based upon the fact that we have drawn down the Army in numbers faster than we have drawn down the infrastructure.
You always get into the issue about depots, whether you need five or three or whatever it may be, but I am not prepared to state today exactly what we need. I will take your tasking that we need to come to you and this committee and tell you what we have excess of, but I cannot give that to you right now.
Mr. HEFLEY. I understand.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Admiral JOHNSON. I would only add, Mr. Hefley, that I think I would put it this way—I, too, believe we are carrying too much infrastructure. To ask me to be specific today, I would ask to do that downrange. But let me say this: For sure, right now our backlog in maintenance and repair in the Navy is $2.5 billion, and by fiscal year 2003 it will be almost $4 billion. We have got to turn that around. We have got to do it.
And it is not enough just to quit digging the divot; we have got to start filling it back in, and that is my biggest concern on the infrastructure side. We are just carrying too much of it, and we don't have enough money to maintain it.
General RYAN. Our range space, we will never have enough range space, particularly as we expand the capabilities of our aircraft. It needs space to be able to train and operate. So we are not under in range space.
We are over in base structure. We need to consolidate our thinly-spaced forces into—and consolidate them into structures that are more supportable. We are spending too much money on facilities that support too little force. We need to do that, and we need to do it soon.
General KRULAK. Sir, I have nothing that I would consider excess now. I would just as soon go back to one comment that you made. And I want to assure you that I have an awful lot of Marines, 172,000, who are really happy about being Marines, who are excited about it, who think they are doing great things for the Nation, are proud of the eagle, globe and anchor. And I think I speak for the other service chiefs, although there is a lot—there are some black clouds out there, the vast majority of these young men and women of character are unbelievably proud of what they are doing and are not moping with their heads down. They are out there hooking and jabbing and doing great things for the country.
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Mr. HEFLEY. I hope, General, you are correct, but don't just make that assumption, because I was in for a real shock on this recent swing that I made. And it was an unfair question to ask you all to do that off the top of your head here, but we will give you an opportunity in hearings, and we would like for to you come to us and tell us what categories you have. And also, General Krulak, the Marines—we have tried awfully hard in recent years to provide a better quality of living for all of our troops, and the Marines are the farthest behind in terms of that.
General KRULAK. Absolutely.
Mr. HEFLEY. And I hope that in your budget that gets through the whole process that you come to us and ask us for what you need in that area. We want Marines to live decently, too. Even Marines we want to live decently.
General KRULAK. We are trying for a 23 percent increase this year. We do have a difficulty.
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. We have a mutually arranged swap here. Mr. Talent.
Mr. TALENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas. I have a plane to catch in 45 minutes, and the 5 minutes may make a difference. I am grateful to him.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, point of order. I want to indicate that Texas is merely the easternmost county of Hawaii.
Mr. TALENT. I originally arranged it with the gentleman from Hawaii and found out the gentleman from Texas was next. I am grateful to my friends.
And I think it may be appropriate to say to the witnesses here as frustrated as we all are, you were kind to say that if not for the 28 million that we plussed up, things would be a lot worse. And I think it would be safer to say that were it not for your leadership in managing this very, very difficult situation, things would be a lot worse, too. I think that the fact that many of you had to go through this in the 1970s, albeit at different stages in your careers, has made it possible for to you plug a few of the holes in the dikes a little bit longer. And I remember talking to Mr. Skelton about this in 1993 or 1994, my first term here, and he was speculating at the time that we would be where we are now even earlier than we are now. So I am grateful to you all now.
I just want to get some figures down. General Shelton, let me ask you, if I can, so I can get in my own mind, what these requirements are. My understanding is that before the SASC on January 5, you indicated to Senator Inhofe that the total requirements over the FYDP would be $148 billion plus pay, plus the people costs.
General SHELTON. That includes the pay, the $148 billion.
Mr. TALENT. The $148 billion includes the pay. That explains something. When I was adding up on the thing we did quickly there, it seemed to come to a lot less. That is $148 billion including the pay.
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General SHELTON. Including the pay.
Mr. TALENT. Okay. That is still your testimony and belief?
General SHELTON. That is the total DOD request, requirement. And as I indicated to Congressman Hunter, you have the add-on for the nonservice requests from DOD that total about $8.3 billion.
Mr. TALENT. So it is $148 plus $8.3 billion. And, of course, then you obviously cannot program in—if we were to do anything additional for military health care for active duty or retired people, obviously that would be an increase. That is an area where I anticipate we are going to have to do something, but you have not programmed in—
General SHELTON. If it is above and beyond what is included in the current submission.
Mr. TALENT. Plus if we have any additional unanticipated contingencies in the world in the next 5 years, that would be an additional.
General SHELTON. That would add on.
Mr. TALENT. As much as we hope it would not happen, I think we expect that it will. It is a chaotic world. So it is $148 billion plus. We can be pretty confident that it is going to be more than that, but I understand why you cannot predict the future.
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I also want to get a little bit into this year's request, which is, as I understand it, going to be $4 billion in real increase or what you had proposed to ask for. You proposed to ask for $265 billion; you are going to ask for $269 billion. I think it is worth noting that we actually provided $267 billion last year, so it is $2 billion over what we provided and $4 billion over what you anticipated asking for. And then $8 billion plus in some additional savings.
General SHELTON. That is correct. And it was $4 billion above what was in the 1999 submission for 2000.
Mr. TALENT. Right. I understand. We were able to do a little better than that last year, but let's keep apples and apples. You started to respond to Mr. Hunter where that $8 billion was coming from, and that is what I want to come out of this hearing with today. Could you break down in components for me as much as you can?
General SHELTON. Yes, I can. It is a total of $3.6 billion in economic adjustments.
Mr. TALENT. Those are adjustments in your expected costs—
General SHELTON. Inflation and fuel savings, military pay, Social Security wage credits.
Mr. TALENT. How much is that? That is about $300 million is what I was told.
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General SHELTON. That is exactly right.
Mr. TALENT. Okay.
General SHELTON. And then it is $3.1 billion in military construction advanced appropriations. That puts DOD on the same par with all other Federal agencies in terms of how we fund MILCON.
Mr. TALENT. So you are not going to pay for as much up front? Is that the way people could understand that?
General SHELTON. That is right.
Mr. TALENT. Those liabilities will still be there, but they will be there down the road.
General SHELTON. The costs will still be there, but they will fund it in the following year like the other members of the Federal Government do it, other agencies.
Mr. TALENT. We are going to have to pay for that. To some extent I understand you are saying that is the way they are already doing it in the rest of the Federal Government, but we are pushing off to the future additional obligations; is that right?
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General SHELTON. Right. It puts it in 2001, 2002, in the year that you plan to expend it.
Mr. TALENT. I got that $7.7 billion.
General SHELTON. And then there is $1.6 billion in rescissions.
Mr. TALENT. Rescissions. That is money you didn't spend?
General SHELTON. Rescission of prior year appropriations.
Mr. TALENT. Now, the economic adjustments, that, of course, assumes that inflation does what we are thinking it is going to do.
General SHELTON. Inflation and fuel. And what normally happens, as you are aware, I am sure, is that money normally comes out of the service and is put back in the general fund and reprogrammed for other things. The services now will get to keep that.
Mr. TALENT. Unless the cost of fuel goes up.
General SHELTON. It has an assumption in it that there will be a savings of that amount. For fuel it amounts to $.8 billion, $800 million in savings.
Mr. TALENT. I am almost done, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Reyes, and I appreciate your indulgence.
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Is it fair to say that in a worst case scenario, if these assumptions don't come through, that all we are looking at is that $4 billion? I mean, how much of this are you confident that we are going to get?
General SHELTON. The $4 billion top line, the $3.1 billion that is an internal reprogramming. That allows the services to use that money in 2000. And the $1.6 billion in rescissions, although the Department has not identified specific programs yet. But all of that stays with the services.
Mr. TALENT. Okay. So there is about 7—
General SHELTON. You have got the $3.6 billion in economic adjustments.
Mr. TALENT. That we cannot be absolutely confident of because it depends on what happens in inflation.
General SHELTON. Not positive until it happens.
Mr. TALENT. I appreciate your candor.
And then assuming we don't have unanticipated contingencies we have to pay. I would say to you gentlemen, and I know it is the best that you can do, but $7 billion we can count on this year out of $156—if you add the $8 billion in service-wide to your $148, $156 billion in additional requirements we know we are going to have over the 5-year period—is not, in my judgment, a very substantial down payment on the job that you all are going to have to do for us, but I appreciate the efforts that you put in to getting that much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, would like to thank you gentlemen for your leadership, and I know that—I get the sense that you are caught in the middle, and you are one step away from the meat grinder.
And one of the things that I do want to tell each of you is that I have had an opportunity in the last couple of years to visit with and talk to our men and women in uniform, and I want to echo what General Krulak said, you know. And then I believe General Reimer mentioned that you don't join the Army to get rich, but we are blessed as a Nation, from my perspective, beyond comprehension at the men and women in uniform in all branches of the service that get out of their service a sense of pride and patriotism in being able to serve our country under our flag virtually in every corner of the globe. And I have seen that, and I appreciate that very much, seeing you here this afternoon under very difficult circumstances trying to do your jobs basically.
And I am reminded—you know, I grew up on a farm, and I am reminded of the first time that I tasted sausage, and I asked my grandfather and I asked him, how do they make this, and he said, you don't want to know. And I think we are engaged in some of this this afternoon, and I say that with all due respect to my colleagues, because I think one of the things that makes me proud in serving in this committee is the sense of bipartisanship that we share about all of the things that we feel responsible to all the services.
So, there are a number of things that I want to focus in on, not related to most of the things that have been said and have been asked about. There are two areas that I am concerned about. One is training, and I know that at least a couple of you gentlemen made mention of your ability to train and to stay ready and keep our troops prepared for whatever eventuality, and dealing with people, dollars, and the time to train, and really recognizing, since I am fortunate to represent the area where Ft. Bliss and, by extension, White Sands is located, and I know the OPTEMPO as it relates to the forces going into the Middle East with the Patriot battalions, and I do get an opportunity to talk to them regularly and get their concerns. But I am interested in your cut on your ability to do training, taking into account, again, the availability of people, the dollars as you have made mention this afternoon, and also the time that obviously is a factor when the OPTEMPO is so great.
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And then the next thing that is one of the things that has me concerned particularly today is the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is supposed to be announcing today that they are merging Navy Upper Tier and THAAD, and I would like particularly, General Reimer, your opinion on that merger, and then somewhat the two distinct protected missions of those two programs, how it interplays in terms of being able to protect our young men and women in uniform.
One, of course, is designed to do one thing, and the other one a completely different thing. And I would like to know from your perspective how this merger is going to play out and how ultimately it is going to play into protecting on the battlefield our men and women in uniform.
So again, thank you for your time and indulgence this afternoon with this committee.
General REIMER. Let me, first of all, address, Congressman, the issue on training. And you bring up a good point which you are very familiar with. I would say our Patriot soldiers are well trained. They get a lot of deployments. They know how to do it. It is amazing to watch them. I watched them in November as they deployed over there, and they have got that down.
I would not say that across the force in all other areas. As I indicated, 1998 was a tough training year for us, and so there is a lot of people out in the field that didn't get a chance to do all of the training, primarily at home station, primarily at areas like Fort Stewart or Fort Carson or Fort Riley, places like that. When they go to the national training center or the combat training center programs, they get good quality training, sophisticated and tough and very realistic training, as far as I am concerned. What we are trying to do with the 1999 help that you gave us is to bring that whole training up to where it needs to be. And when I look at 2000, what I know right now, that ought to continue to improve.
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As far as the THAAD program is concerned and the issue that was discussed today, I don't know all the details on that, and I need to do a little bit more analysis. But as I understand it, both the THAAD and the Navy theater-wide will continue on to review at about 2000, at which there will be a decision made to reward success. In my mind, THAAD has a very good opportunity to be awarded success, or maybe both of them will, and then somebody has a tough decision in that area.
So I think what was laid out today, as I understand it, is a fair way of doing it. It keeps THAAD going. As you know, THAAD has another test set now, I think, for about early March, critical test, that will be their ninth test-firing. So I think the decision that was made today and the program that was put out at least from the THAAD theater or Navy theater-wide is a good one. They need the THAAD because it gives the indirect atmospheric capability that only THAAD gives, as far I am concerned.
Admiral JOHNSON. My understanding of today's discussion relative to THAAD and Navy theater-wide tracks exactly with what Denny just said, sir. And indeed, we will go forward. I want to field Navy theater-wide as fast as we can sanely do it. We are committed to that. We have a very aggressive test program to take us on that pathway, and we are getting our ships ready to do exactly that. I feel good about the program.
Lots of work to do. We are equal to the task. The training piece is a significant one, as you point out. And for us, you have heard me mention before about the bathtub, the nondeployed side, we are focusing tremendous effort on that piece of our lives to better and more sharply train our men and women. But to do that—and one of the things that has caught us up short big time is having the people in the right place, having the systems to train with, meaning airplanes to fly, ships to steam, parts to fix them, required turnaround maintenance completed in a timely manner. All of that has suffered because of underfunding and realizing that we had to push what we had forward to sustain the readiness.
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A lot of good effort going in right now to fix that. I am encouraged by the feedback that we are getting from the fleet. We are not there yet, but we know what the challenges are, and we will fix them.
General SHELTON. In regard to Navy theater-wide and THAAD, we are trying to respond to the threat in an efficient and effective manner. And what we hope to do is continue flying THAAD and for the first time fully funding the acquisition of Navy theater-wide, and the goal there in this strategy is to field the first one that provides us with an effective system.
In terms of the training piece, I think the PERSTEMPO that has been talked about frequently today and dollars are the two key elements; the PERSTEMPO and control in order to allow the time to train back at home station to the level you need to be before you deploy the next time without running our troops into the ground, and then, of course, the dollars which relate to the O&M accounts of the services. Those are the two key pieces and that we are trying to control the PERSTEMPO and at same time make sure that we have a fully funded operations and maintenance account.
General RYAN. We, over the last 8 years or so, have seen a steady decline in our mission capability rates on our aircraft. That has a direct relation to training in that to generate the aircraft to get the training sortie that you need, it has to have all the spare parts and mission-capable equipment on the aircraft so that you get realistic training.
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There is another dynamic that has occurred in this for us also, and that is that as we are losing some of our experienced pilots and experienced air crews. We are at the same time ramping up our pilot training from a low of—very low about 5 years ago of no more than 500 up to 1,100 by the year 2000. That produces a less-experienced force that requires continual training. So this intersection of aircraft not available because of parts and aging and a younger force are things that we put a lot of emphasis on in the budget that will come over to this Congress this next year. We think that is vitally important to our readiness and indeed to safety.
General KRULAK. We have attacked the training, attacking just what Admiral Johnson discussed, the stability of the individual Marines. In early 1996, we established something called cohesion, our units very similar to the British regimental system. Our Marines joined an infantry battalion. They remain with that battalion for their entire first enlistment. So as they go through, it is not lost on them. The base is there, and you keep training and training. For the entire time they are a part of that unit, which is, in fact, their entire first enlistment.
So we are fairly confident that although the equipment that we have is a little bit older and the ability to use it all the time now, it spends more time in the maintenance bays, the fact of the matter is through cohesion you can maintain the baseline effectiveness of your trained units.
Mr. REYES. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bartlett—Mrs. Fowler came in. We will go back and pick up Mrs. Fowler.
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Mrs. FOWLER. I can wait. Go ahead.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
I want to return for just a moment to a point that Congressman Taylor was making. I have here in front of me a report from our committee staff. Unless they are in error, they make the point that retention rates have dropped to dangerous levels, and then they give some statistics. Despite increased pilot bonuses, for example, the take rate on pilot retention bonuses had dropped to 26 percent, and in some specialties it is even worse. For training pilots for the years 1997 and 1998, no one took the bonus. Isn't this closer, General Ryan, to catastrophe than it is a dangerous level?
General RYAN. If it continues at the level of 26 to 27 percent take rate for our forces, it will mean that we, with ramping up our pilot training, with extending the active duty service commitment for those pilots, it means that by the year 2002 we will be 2,000 pilots short in the United States Air Force. That is about 15 percent of the required pilots we need.
Mr. BARTLETT. But they said here that for training pilots, nobody, not a single pilot, took the bonus in 1997 and 1998. Are they in error, or is that correct?
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General RYAN. I would have to check what they mean by ''training,'' because we have training in many different aircraft. We have F-16 training, and I know that some of those pilots—
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. BARTLETT. The point I wanted to make is that part of the problem in retention and major problem in recruitment is the fact that we have broken our commitment to our veterans, and I am talking specifically about veteran health care. I don't know what it would cost to keep our promise, but I can tell you it is costing us a whole lot more not keeping that promise in terms of retention and recruitment. What I would implore to you do is please tell us what it is going to cost to fix that problem, because not fixing it is costing us a whole lot more, I am sure, than fixing the problem would cost.
Second, I have a concern about the ballistic missile defense strategy that was enunciated today. Apparently that strategy will effectively result in killing MEADS. MEADS meets a need that is not met by PAC 3, that is not met by Navy Upper Tier or by THAAD. None of those are forward deployment—land-based forward deployments are mobile, and none of them provide a 360-degree coverage. Only MEADS does that.
I have two concerns. One is that we are denying our troops a defense that they need. And the second is that I have major concerns about what this is doing to our international alliances one more time. We are telling our partners overseas that you cannot count on the Americans because they won't see it through. It is my understanding that we have not discussed this with the Germans and the Italians; that we are simply going to tell them. Am I incorrect that MEADS meets a special need that is not met by these others, and that we have an international commitment to these partners to see this program through?
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General KRULAK. You want to take that one, Denny?.
General SHELTON. I would say, first of all, that you are correct in that MEADS does provide mobility. It provides 360-degree coverage and a capability against cruise missile defense. It has been a program that has been looked at by the Army and the Marines. It would be a capability that would be useful. But in terms of the amount of money to fund the MEADS, the other systems were needed worse than MEADS was in order to provide for the number one priority for us, and that is a theater missile defense capability.
Mr. BARTLETT. So what you are saying is that to really protect our troops, you need more money?
General SHELTON. The threat in terms of the theater missile defense capability is there today. But even if MEADS was a fully funded program, the latest IOC that I have seen on it was about 2010. The other programs that we have discussed here today would give us the capability, if they are successful, far sooner than that.
Mr. BARTLETT. What I think we would like is an estimate from you all as to what it is going to cost to continue with MEADS, because unless something else comes on the horizon, it meets a need that is not met by any of the other systems.
You mentioned the threat. I would like to take just a moment to recognize that fortunately we are now recognizing that there is a ballistic missile threat. And I have a question relative to that. One is if there is a ballistic missile threat, there is the threat that that missile could be tipped with a nuclear weapon. If that is true, any serious opponent is probably going to use his first weapon to create the most havoc for us. And both in the military theater and on the continental United States, that would be detonating that weapon at high altitude producing an EMP laydown.
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My question is, and I know that you did not come prepared to answer this, there are two problems that arise. One is how much operability would you have at your bases, because most of those are served by our domestic infrastructure, and it is probable that our domestic infrastructure would be decimated by a high-level nuclear burst producing an EMP laydown that would in effect fry all chips, all computers, all microelectronics, which means that we probably would have essentially no—one consultant said if you want to know what this would do, it is a giant time machine which would move us back a century in technology.
One question I would like an answer on the record to is what would this do to your bases that rely largely on domestic infrastructure? And second, how much of your fighting capability would remain if this was the first use of a sophisticated enemy of a nuclear weapon? Because of its asymmetric nature, it would be his first use.
I understand that you are waiving the EMP hardening on most new weapons systems. I have a major concern. We don't need them to fight Saddam Hussein. They are great, and we have less casualties using them, but we could beat him with World War II fighting systems, because that is where he is. Any sophisticated enemy is certainly going to do an EMP laydown, and if our new weapons systems are not EMP-hardened, he is going to deny us their use. And then my question is why in the heck would we build them in the first place if, when we really need them, we are not going to have them?
I know you cannot answer these questions today, and my time is up, but I would like answers on the record to those questions.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Snyder.
Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I appreciate you all being here today.
General Shelton, one of the proposals the President has made is a fairly substantial increase in money for the cooperative threat reduction program. My guess is because of the increase, it will be kind of a target for Members trying to find sources of funds for some other projects. General Shelton, what is your opinion of that increase in funding the cooperative threat reduction?
General SHELTON. Well, I certainly would support the increased effort in cooperative threat reduction. In terms of the funding, I cannot comment because I haven't seen the specific funding lines and do not know specifically where that is coming from.
Mr. SNYDER. General Shelton, some of the personnel challenges that you have outlined for us today, what is going on now with the military academies in terms of recruitment efforts and the kinds of men and women that you are getting that end up showing up on the first day?
General SHELTON. Let me turn to the service chiefs that have the academies, if I could. They are more up to speed on that than I am.
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General REIMER. I think what I would say from the West Point standpoint is that we are still receiving some of the best young men and women that America has to offer. The competition for those positions—we have about 1,000 come in in each class, and the competition is very keen. And I am very, very pleased and very proud of the quality that we have over there. I have spent some time up there, both marching in with them from the field and participating with them in other things. I think America is well served in the military academy with the young men and women that she gives us.
Admiral JOHNSON. I very much agree from the Naval Academy perspective and would encourage you to go over and spend some time with them. That is the real metric that governs for me. They are awesome young men and women. And we have a lot of competition coming in the door.
General RYAN. We also take in about a thousand a year, and we see no decrease. In fact, we continue to get increases in what we consider quality applicants.
And I have to tell you there appears to be a thought that we don't have a quality force right now out there in the field, and I want to dispel that. We have some of the most wonderful men and women in the world serving in our Armed Forces. And I can speak specifically for the Air Force. They do everything that we ask them to do. And because our retention rates are not as high as they should be or could be to keep them, it is not because of them. It is probably because we haven't done all the things we need to do to continue to make service attractive for these folks. We are still attracting very, very high quality into our academies and indeed into our ROTC and OTS programs.
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Mr. SNYDER. I would just add to that, I think this is a new challenge, this full economy with airlines doing so well and a peacetime situation with no draft, and our country has never faced this challenge before, given the leadership that the country is expected to show around the world.
Admiral, you were talking about your needs in recruitment. I know there was an effort made to have the arsenal ship a year or two ago, and it was unsuccessful. I gather that part of the effort behind that was to cut down the number of sailors you have to have on board ship. What do you see happening in the future in terms of trying to get down to personnel needs by eliminating jobs on carriers and other ships?
Admiral JOHNSON. We have a great deal going on, and I will be happy to provide you a great deal of detail for the record, but quickly let me say that the new carrier design, for instance, on CVX, we are putting a new power plant into that ship that we hope and believe very seriously will derive 30 to 40 percent savings in manpower once we get all the systems on line. The DD-21 land attack destroyer, you know the Aegis cruisers that we have now, have 350 or so people on them. The DD destroyer, the metric that we are asking for is 95 people. We are working very hard on that.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. SNYDER. Admiral, you also mentioned the congressional force level mandate, and I think an earlier comment, and I am not sure I understood everything you said. Is it your opinion that it would be helpful for this Congress at this time to relook at the mandated force levels? I think the idea is looking ahead to SALT II and SALT III negotiations.
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Admiral JOHNSON. I think—let me try—
Mr. SNYDER. From a national security perspective it would be helpful?
Admiral JOHNSON. From a national security perspective, I believe that the force that the Navy is building for the 21st century will be adequate to our needs. I will also tell you that I believe that that is not a static statement. I think that it bears revisit and honest reassessment as we go. It has been 2 years since the QDR. We haven't gotten any ''unbusier.'' I suspect that will not change.
So we need not be satisfied that we have reached end state, if that makes sense. But I will tell you for right now, the profile the Navy is on, if we can get in balance with ourselves, and we are working hard to do that, in the recruiting and retention and the resourcing aspect, I think it will be a Navy more than adequate to our needs. I really believe that. But I would also, as I said before, ask that downrange we must continue to constantly reassess to see if we are on the mark. It is a very dynamic world, chaotic, as General Krulak says. We need to continue to refine our numbers and our strategies.
Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.
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Gentlemen, I join my colleagues in welcoming you all here. I know it has been a long day, and hopefully when we look back on this 10 years from now, history will judge that we have done the right thing by what you have told us and from what we have heard from you today. I think we are all struck a little bit by the prospects of retention rates, some of the drastic statistics that have come up, and your suggestions on that as well are important to us.
General Ryan, let me approach you with some questions and let you talk to us through these. We have heard you talk a bit about Redux and pay increases. Why do you feel that we need to change those? And is there a better way to do this other than through changes to the retirement system and the pay increase system? And a follow-up with that, if you will, how do you know? How do you know that that is the correct thing or the correct change to address the retention problem?
General RYAN. Let me speak to the retirement piece of it first, sir. That is, we have polled our people, and they tell us on the officer side that as a retention tool retirement at the 40 percent level has lost its impact. It is down in the—gone from what used to be number 1 or number 2 for both of our enlisted officers to number 5 as a retention tool. So we know from polling that, but we also know it from anecdotal evidence, just going out and talking to the troops. They do not understand why somebody working right beside them who joined 1 year earlier is worth 50 percent, and they are only worth 40 percent. It is a mindset. There is a big economic difference between the two also when you take it actuarially out.
So I think that it is a commitment by all of us to our forces that they are worth a retirement—worthy of a retirement system, just as the person that is seated beside them. So we all think, all the Chiefs, that the retirement fix has to be made. It is real, and it is an emotional thing in our force out there.
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Mr. GIBBONS. General Shelton, your comment?
General SHELTON. Just one additional. A recently completed RAND study that looked at the proposed new pay table and the retirement with the reform built in said that they thought this would increase overall retention by 14 percent and would increase the proportion of enlisted that would stay to a 20-year career by 45 percent. That is the result of a recent RAND study.
Mr. GIBBONS. Let me step back, if I may, to General Ryan again. And I know that over the last 2 years, we have talked quite a bit about the BRAC process, base realignment and closure process. Do you think it is important to the long-term health of the Air Force in your service? Do you also believe that there may be a different alternative way to achieve the same savings that we would have if we had the BRAC process other than the closures of those bases?
And finally, let me address one final question in order to keep this short to all of the Chiefs and even the Chairman, if he would be so kind. Simply, if you had one more dollar to spend, what would you spend it on?
General RYAN. I will begin. For the first question, I really do believe that we need a BRAC. We have too much infrastructure. We are putting too much money out. We have a 4.4 billion backlog in keeping up the infrastructure that we do have.
Are there alternatives to BRAC? We are exploring some of those alternatives to BRAC right now. Brooks Air Base in Texas is one where we do cooperative efforts with the local community to share the infrastructure. They need more of it, we need less of it, is there some way to do this without going to a base realignment and closure.
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Yes, there are variations on BRAC, but I do think that we need a BRAC legislation because not all the areas can we implement that.
And if we had one more dollar what would we spend it on? One more dollar from where we think we are funded in this budget that will eventually be here, I would put it against our infrastructure and specifically our military family housing.
The CHAIRMAN. You better let the Chairman answer because he is supposed to be leaving.
General SHELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
If I could respond just one second, and that is on the BRAC. The savings off of the BRACs that were done from 1988 to 1995 the Department estimates to be $13.6 billion with a recurring savings of $5.6 billion every year and 2001. The two rounds that were proposed in 2001 and 2003 carried with them a savings of $3 billion per year starting in 2008. And, of course, that is in the front part of the power curve of the modernization—of the Department's modernization plan, and that is why that is critical, in addition to doing a lot more things efficiently and adopting better business practices. So there are lots of fronts that are important to achieve savings to help us modernize at the rate that we need to modernize in order to the budget that is laid out here.
And one more dollar? I would support General Ryan in that one. I think our RPM, our infrastructure accounts, if everything in the proposed—the President's budget where we have put the money there, the thing that we probably need to focus on in addition to that is the RPM bill, which is quite high for all of our services.
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Mr. Chairman, I hate to run for a meeting at the White House, but once again I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and also for the support from you and the committee.
The CHAIRMAN. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. And my understanding is that the Chiefs can stay around a little while longer we have a few people who have some questions here.
Mr. Gibbons, are you still—
Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, I would just follow it up with one more dollar might make you a 911 service, but if you had that dollar, including the Navy and the Army, what would you spend it on?
General KRULAK. I would spend it on any type of warfighting enhancement that would bring my Marines back alive from the first battle of the next war.
Admiral JOHNSON. My answer to that, sir, one dollar, all things being equal, I would put it in the pocket of my sailors.
General REIMER. I would buy back more noncommissioned officers.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Tauscher.
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hello, gentlemen. I represent California's 10th Congressional District. I am a second-term Member of Congress, but I didn't get on the committee until September of last year.
Last month I had the pleasure of going to the former Yugoslavia with the Army. When I was much younger, I spent 14 years on Wall Street, and I have been involved in briefings by CEOs and CFOs and COOs of some of the largest companies on the planet, and I have got to tell you that I have never been more impressed by the people that I met when I was visiting the former Yugoslavia. I haven't had the chance to spend any time with the Navy or the Marines or the Air Force, but my guess is I will be equally impressed by the people that I will meet.
What I offer to you in the limited time I have, I have a district which is about as far away as it can be and still be in the continental United States, near San Francisco, and I have a family. But I am very dedicated to working with you. I can't pat you on the back and tell you that when I was in basic training, this is what happened to me. I am an estrogen-based life form. I never had the pleasure. But I believe that it is important that I am able to articulate not only to the people in my district and the State of California, but the American people the necessity of the investments that we need to make.
When I was in Heidelberg last month, I had the opportunity of meeting General Clark, quite an impressive gentleman, and he was distraught about the conditions under which the American fighting men and women's families are living. And General Bell was nice enough to take me to see some housing, and I was appalled. Think of the worst freshman college housing you have ever seen, and throw a hand grenade in the door.
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And I believe that the paradigm change that we have had, moving into the 21st century, just in the question of the military and who we are and where the world is is going to continue to stress us because of the way the American family has changed and the competitiveness that we need to have just recruiting people. Because we have a 4.3 percent unemployment rate, high school graduates have lots of opportunities. If we don't fix the problem for the military fighting men and women's families, it frankly doesn't matter what we do for a lot of the other things we have been talking about.
This is something that is of particular interest to me. I will offer you all my time. I need a primer, and I need some help, but I am very interested in working on these issues. I have just been very happy to join the procurement and personnel committees, so you will have whatever time I have absent my not being in my district or being with my family. But congratulations on all the hard work that you do. You do represent the best people, I think, on the planet, and they need help, and I hope to help with you that.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you very much.
General REIMER. Thank you.
General RYAN. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, too, from me.
Mrs. Fowler.
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Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, and I echo what Congresswoman Tauscher just said. I look forward to working with her on it. I thank you each of you for being here, and thank you all for your service to our Nation and for the information that you bring to us to help us in fulfilling our constitutional mandate to properly maintain our military and our national security.
Admiral Johnson, I was going to ask this of you and General Shelton, but he had to leave, so you are stuck. I recently have become deeply concerned about our ability to adequately perform the signal intelligence mission that is critical to our ability to strike at targets in places like Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. I am hearing from a host of our fleet commanders and our commanders in the field that they are deeply concerned about their ability to provide adequate, timely signal intelligence. I am told in particular that CENTCOM, PACCOM and SOUTHCOM have all registered concern about the lack of availability of these assets, so I am surprised to learn that the Navy is planning to retire its fleet of 16 ES/3A signal intelligence aircraft for affordability reasons this year.
Now this is the only signal intelligence aircraft that we have capable of flying off of our carriers, and the two squadrons that we have, which, by the way, only came on line starting fiscal year 1994, represent some 50 percent of the Navy's total signal intelligence assets and 20 percent of DOD's total.
And I want to read a quote. Back in September, Admiral Herbert Brown, Commander of the Third Fleet, was testifying before the readiness subcommittee, and I want to read a section from his testimony. And I quote: Navy resource decisions in fiscal 1999 and beyond also resulted in the loss of the ES/3A. The carrier battle group's only organic intelligence-gathering aircraft were deployed for the last time with the Carl Vinson Battle Group in November 1998. This is significant in that with the ES/3, warfare commanders at sea have historically been provided real-time intelligence tailored to their needs. While other assets in theater will theoretically fill this void, they are scarce. They are controlled by national agencies often unavailable for tasking by BG warfare commanders. As the compressed literal battle space increasingly becomes the focus of battle group operations in any contingency, the comprehensive tactical situational awareness loss with the demise of the ES/3A will be significant.
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This is the Commander of the Third Fleet testifying before us.
I am informed on the first night of Desert Fox, our ES/3A were the only signal intelligence assets that flew in support of our strike packages because of concerns that Iraqi intelligence was monitoring our land-based signal intelligence assets in the area, and there was a concern that their use might compromise the operation.
Given recent Iraqi actions to move more mobile SAMs into the no-fly zones and the recent challenges and heightened risk to our aviators, I am all the more concerned. And I can tell you that I and I think many in this committee would view the loss of a single pilot over Iraq that happened as a result of an avoidable reduction in our signal intelligence capabilities in the Gulf as very, very disturbing.
Now, you and I had some correspondence back in September and December, and you wrote me that affordability was a key driver in this decision. However, I heard that the cost that had been briefed inside the Pentagon for perpetuating this system has been overstated. The Navy had earlier indicated a high interest in buying back these 16 aircraft if it got more dollars in the fiscal year 2000 top line. That happened, but by all accounts this will still be cut. Can you help us understand this decision?
And finally, can you tell me if any kind of a risk analysis was done prior to the decision to decommission these squadrons? It seems to me that with the risk of our pilots over Iraq and potentially over Yugoslavia, this is a system we cannot afford not to have.
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Admiral Johnson.
Admiral JOHNSON. The ES/3 decision was not taken lightly, and I know you know that. I think probably the best thing I could do, Mrs. Fowler, is to suggest that we provide you certainly for the record, but in person, a lengthy classified discussion on that subject.
I will tell you that part of my concern—and I understand the operational tactical applications. I have used them. I have dealt with circumstances with them and without them. So, I mean, I have an understanding of that. But I would tell you that the advent of the ES/3, in my opinion, was a very good program poorly executed. And I don't mean that at all on the part of the people in those squadrons or who are running the ES/3 community. They did a marvelous job. We didn't help them at all. That is my bust, not theirs.
So that is a part of this construct. It also overlays or sits next to what happens to the rest of the S/3 community and the assets that are available to do the multitude of missions that the S/3Bs are asked to do right now. All of that together took us to the decision not to use the ES/3 in the future.
Admiral JOHNSON. So, beyond that, I would offer and ask for your support to come talk to you about it in a classified level.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, I would welcome that; and I think some of our people on the fleet would welcome it also. Because some of these aviators, these F–18s, are flying out of my district. I am hearing—I know these pilots. It is their lives on the line. And they are deeply concerned because they know what they are not going to be getting without these aircraft. I mean, satellites can't do it. They are limited. Some of these other assets we have are limited. I am really concerned. I don't want a single life lost ever and particularly not because of budget reasons that we don't keep assets we need in the fleet.
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Admiral JOHNSON. I don't either, and you know that.
Mrs. FOWLER. I know you don't. Exactly.
Admiral JOHNSON. But I will be very happy to discuss it with you at length.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. STUMP. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hayes, is recognized.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I appreciate what you and your forces do for our country, and I appreciate you being here today, and I thank you.
As I travel my district, North Carolina, Eighth, the most consistent request I get from my constituents is to give us the strongest possible national defense, protect us and rebuild our military.
Recently, a series of press conferences have been held, including the State of the Union, and these presentations have been orchestrated in my opinion to make our citizens think that their concerns have been answered. This is not true. This report that you have furnished us says it is not true. Your testimony in the committee says it is not true. There is, in my opinion, a false sense of security being created within our citizens.
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In your opinion, is this partly, completely or not true at all? General Krulak, please.
General KRULAK. Well, I think it is a great deal of truth to that statement. I am not sure that it is done with malice aforethought. I think it is done because of the change in the world situation. When the Wall came down, people thought that the threat went away. Well, it did. It is just that it came back in a lot different light. And it is—it is extremely dangerous.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to Congressman Weldon.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Weldon is recognized.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank my distinguished friend and colleague. Just a couple of follow-up questions, and these are more for the record because General Shelton is no longer with us. If you want to comment, you can.
But to get these dollar figures in a perspective, my numbers are $18.5 billion, your need, not including the pay raise issue. I have an article in front of me where, from the President's speech last night, his commitment to additional work with the Russian nuclear threat—and I, by the way, have been very supportive of our efforts with Russia in this regard. But I want to get a handle on the dollar amount, because I don't think anyone really knows what this is.
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The President proposed spending, and I quote, $4.2 billion over the next 5 years, an increase of 70 percent over the $2.5 billion. I would assume that none of you have budgeted the additional $1.7 billion that is going to be required here. Is that correct? Have any of you budgeted for that?
General REIMER. No, sir.
General KRULAK. No, sir.
Mr. WELDON. So that is a $1.7 billion—
Dwayne Andrews, who chaired the Defense Science Board two years ago, chaired a commission that issued a report saying we should be spending $4 billion more on information warfare and protecting our smart systems than we are currently spending. Has that been budgeted for in each of your individual budgets or is that something that is being budgeted for across the services DOD-wide?
General REIMER. That is something that I think each service is taking on in terms of information assurance, and we are certainly doing it in the Army as we move into the digitized world and the information dominance. But I am not familiar with the $4 billion or the Defense Science Board figure that you have quoted.
Mr. WELDON. So each of you are doing something in each of your services.
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Admiral JOHNSON. Yes.
General KRULAK. Absolutely.
Mr. WELDON. So the question we need to find out, Mr. Chairman, is whether or not—what the dollar amount is that follows through with the recommendation by the Defense Science Board to provide protection for the kind of tax that John Hamre dealt with in our hearings last year when he said that it is not a matter of if we have an electronic Pearl Harbor but when, because that is, in fact, a high priority for this committee, as it was in the past. I know it is a high priority of yours. So that is an additional cost.
We talked about missile defense. And as I mentioned when General Shelton was here, the current budget projections are that we decrease BMDO's budget by $1 billion over 5 years. And regardless of whether we do a competition between the Navy and the Army, that and Navy areawide for the hit to kill, we still have a significant investment that has to be made there. We need to get a figure as to what that additional cost is and also the issue of national missile defense.
And the last thing that I would like to ask again for the record—and I would like to ask General Shelton to answer this because I think he is the one that has to. The press conference today, Secretary Cohen who we received a briefing from this morning, along with General Lyles, said that the administration is now publicly acknowledging that the threat to the United States is here now.
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We were told 3 years ago, in NIE 95–19 strongly supported by the administration—in fact, that became the basis of the veto of the defense bill that year—that the threat would not materialize for 15 years. Today, Secretary Cohen announced that the administration now maintains the threat is here, that the only thing holding back a deployment decision on NMD is when the technology matures.
Now I have two quotes here that I would like to have General Shelton respond to when he was asked about the technical risk. Boeing is the lead system integrator for national missile defense. They are completing that $1.6 billion contract right now. The head of that program for Boeing is a fellow by the name of Dr. Peller. He has said on the record, and I quote him, ''As for the technical risk, I have zero doubt about getting it to work.''
Second quote by Dr. Peller in terms of the hit to kill high risk. ''Yes, the first few times in testing there is high risk, but there is considerably less risk here than some of the other programs on which I have worked, like the space shuttle, for instance.''
The point is that Dr. Peller, who is the head of the lead system integration for Boeing, has said on the record the technical challenges are not beyond our reach today.
So my question to General Shelton is, and it is going to be to the administration this year, if we in fact have now determined that the threat is real and it is here today, which Secretary Cohen has announced, and if in fact the administration is saying it is only a matter of when we are technically capable of filling the system and if Boeing says that is not a problem, then my question is: Why should we not make, as a country, the decision to deploy this year? That is going to be a major issue of debate in this Congress.
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Last year, Senator Cochran's bill only lost by one vote to the Senate to achieve closure. Fifty-nine senators supported that. We couldn't get the 60th vote because the administration opposed it.
This year, Congressman Spratt and I are introducing a bill to do the same thing in the House. And the point is, this is going to be a major issue. And if the administration is really serious about moving forward with NMD, then we should make the conscious decision publicly to send a signal to our contractors and to the Russians that we are going to proceed with deploying national missile defense, and we should do it and make that decision today.
So I would ask for the record that, Mr. Chairman, that General Shelton respond to those questions.
I would thank my friend and colleague for yielding to me.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Buyer.
Mr. BUYER. I thank the Chairman, and I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues. I have a 15-minute break in the Senate trial. I wanted to come over and speak to each of the chiefs, and I am sorry that General Shelton is not here, because I want to indicate to each of you some of the things that we are going to take up in the Personnel Subcommittee, and I look forward to working with you.
One of the things, you know, that has been of concern and is continuing is the spiraling decline, this hemorrhaging, I view it, in recruiting and retention. I think the Army has come a long way from where you were 2 years ago. Nudge Admiral Johnson over there and give him some hints. He is also tackling a very difficult issue, and we are going to work with you on it. I wasn't necessarily pleased in a very difficult decision you had to make with regard to standards, but we will work on that. I pledge that to you.
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The issue on pay and pension, you know I look at this and say a lot of dollars are going on the table. You all requested up to $150 billion. The President comes forward with his $110, $112 billion. That means there is still some things then that you want that are still left undone. So when you throw in the mix, you have forced modernization, pay, pension, the health care; tough decisions.
So let me first open up by a compliment to all of you. You have been coming up here for years, and we have been beating you over the head about your candor. And let me compliment you for your persuasiveness in order for you to speak with candor that occurred last year. So I extend a compliment to you.
Now that you have done that, that doesn't mean that we now get the liberty to beat you up. Because now I extend that as an opportunity to work with you on very real problems for which we both see.
The issue on pay, I will indicate to you I do favor the changing some of the pay tables in the mid-grade officer and NCO Corps; and we will take that issue up further in the Personnel Subcommittee.
The issue on pension, pension reform, it was last year when I asked all of you that question, how important is that reform? And you all indicated that you thought that was number one on the concern of a lot of those who served under your command.
I wasn't around in Congress in 1986 when that decision was made. Before I, with the stroke of a pen, put in in a Chairman's mark to change that, I think we have a duty to thoroughly understand why that was done, and I will look into the legislative history. That does not mean that I don't agree with changing the system, but I want you to know that I am going to turn to each of the services to help explain why this was done in 1986 and show to me the nexus, prove to me the nexus that changing this pension reform is, in fact, going to have a compliment to your retention problems that you have, and in fact what is the compliment toward recruiting.
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On the issue on health care, I would share with you, and especially General Reimer with regard to the Army, there has been a political—I don't want to call a political move. There are many Members, not only here but also in the Senate, that have this desire for mail order pharmacy. And I am preferring the revitalization of the pharmacy program, and I am hopeful that that is going to happen. I know there is a lot of things that are on your plate, but if you could look into that one for me. I would prefer a revitalization for the program for which GAO shows there will be tremendous savings out there, rather than just throwing the mail order pharmacy program right on top of it.
Let me also extend to each of you, in response to our inquiries and admirable recognition over the last 2 years, each of you have increased rigor and warrior spirit at your training centers. And I compliment for you for that, because that is the right and the proper for focus. And we will continue to look on those issues because we will have the commission that should be coming out around March, and you know that one is not going away.
So I just wanted really to give a statement and forewarning to each of you, and I look forward to working with each of you on many other issues.
And, Mr. Chairman, I thank your indulgence. I thank my colleagues.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Buyer.
Next we have Mr. Kuykendall. Commandant, that is another Marine you have got here. And, Admiral Johnson, you have got a daughter who is flying F–14s. I guess you knew that. So he is qualified. First time on the committee.
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Mr. KUYKENDALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My qualifications are limited in that I only received the rank of Captain, though. I never got to this August level.
Nothing has been talked about today in any of the questions about the ability to lift our forces overseas. And as we have shrunk the military both in manpower and in base locations to where we are now basically a CONUS-based unit that has to project its force from here, very, very limited number of people, although it is 100,000 or so in the Pacific and about 100,000 in Europe, every time we want to go kick Saddam's head or whatever else we have to do because something else has raised its ugly head, we project it from the United States.
Could each of you probably—I don't know whether the Marine Corps has so much to say about it, because they usually have to get the ride. But as far as the Navy and the Air Force in particular, sealift capability to lift both material and personnel and airlift the same thing and tankers, because as you deploy from here, the tanker fleet just multiplies as you have to refuel them to get across the place. Any comments on that? And are we adequately covering that? No one commented on that at all and the adequacy of the funding in those areas.
General RYAN. I will start. On the air side, we measure our capability to deploy the forces through a lift analysis that gives us how many ton miles we need to lift on the cargo side. We are below that now.
The C–17 program is helping us to get well. But there are some other factors that are entering into our capability to deploy forces rapidly through the air; and that is that our C–5, which, to meet the requirements that we have in the lift studies, should be at a mission capability rate of 75 percent. It is at 61 percent I think today.
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So we have investment that we must make in keeping these older but very useful air frames viable for the future. So we are going to put a lot of money into those kinds of capabilities on the lift side because rapid deployment forward I think is absolutely critical to meeting some of the security needs we have with this Nation.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. Admiral Johnson.
Admiral JOHNSON. To add, sir, from the sea side, I actually think that we have made great progress inside the Navy/Marine Corps team with the amphibious ready group of the 21st century, with the big deck amphib, the LPD-17, the LSD-41/49 as the combat carrying capability of the 21st century are, I think General Krulak would agree, will meet that part of our need very nicely. The LPD-17 in fact replaces four classes of ships. So it is going to be a huge asset to it.
But in addition to that, okay, you know we have got assets, like 19 large speed medium ROROs, LMSRs, the last of which is in the bill. Eleven of those are for surge lift. Eight of them, as I recall, I think that is the right number, are for prepositioning.
So we are—and that meets the last validated mobility requirements study about an upper view. So, in that context, I think we have made pretty good context. We will be happy to break that down for you with a little more granularity, but those are the big pieces.
[The information referred can be found in the appendix.]
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Mr. KUYKENDALL. Yes, gentlemen.
General REIMER. I would say also, Congressman, because we are probably their biggest customer, I just simply say that you have put your finger on something that reflects the change that has occurred in our world since the end of the Cold War. We were forward deployed, and now we are a power projection Army. That takes different forms.
One of it I think is best illustrated by the fact that we routinely close a brigade-sized element in southwest Asia from the count of the United States in less than 96 hours. As a comparison, during Desert Storm, it took us 18 days to close that same element.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. On that one, is that because of prepositioned equipment?
General REIMER. Prepositioned ship, prepositioned equipment. We also have a set of prepositioned equipment on Jay's ships that he talked about, so we have got more in there.
We believe very strongly that we need more C–17s, because they are great in terms of getting us there, and totally support what Mike Ryan has said about that program.
The other point I would make is that that is one of the reasons that we have redesigned our divisions. They are now 20 percent more deployable because of the power projection challenge that we face. We are moving in that direction. And, as Jay mentioned, the national—or the mobility study really gets at this whole issue of being able to close the Corps within 75 days with all of its requirements.
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General KRULAK. I think Admiral Johnson hit the nail on the head. For the Navy/Marine Corps team, we are not backing CONUS. I mean, the value of the Navy/Marine Corps team for the Nation is that we are forward deployed. The amphibious ship, the amphibious ready group is sovereign territory, U.S. sovereign territory, force protection needs for the most part taken care of. It is a tremendous capability. And I think we are well on the way to building the type of amphibious ready group for the 21st century that we are going to need. We are not going to bring them home. The reality is we will be out there more often, not less.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. I guess, for my other colleagues here, I think that is one of the points. If we don't want to have them overseas, we have to have the ability to haul them there and keep them out there and otherwise.
Just as an aside from all of that, I look forward to this assignment probably as much as anything I have ever done. All of you will get a chance to show me around your facilities whenever I can get there. I, like Mrs. Tauscher, are about as far way from here as you can get on the other side of the country in California. So I have enjoyed the Marine Corps' time in the State because about a third of the Corps is there I guess.
But the rest of you, I have a few more bases to look at. In fact, I was very impressed with the people that I met on this recent trip I just came back from with—principally, it was all Air Force officers meeting us. And your number on the C–5s, I was just told us a week ago with the guy that commanded the C–5s at Travis, that the percentage of up time was just not as high as it could be. They couldn't fly them enough. But I am very anxious to become much more familiar with your issues, and I welcome to spend as much time as I can get with you. Thank you.
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The CHAIRMAN. Moving right along, the end of what we call after-the-gavel part now. We go right down the list.
Mr. Sherwood also a new member, gentlemen, on the committee, and we welcome him.
Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And being my first one of these, it is obvious to me the respect that this body holds for you gentlemen and the forces that you command; and you have a lot of friends on this committee. So my only comment in that regard would be, it would be impossible for this discussion to be too frank or too candid. And please give us your thoughts. That is the only way we can help you.
General Reimer, my military service, my Army service taught me that, when money is tight, long-term maintenance is always deferred. And Admiral Johnson has mentioned a looming maintenance backlog of $2.5 billion in the Navy. Can you tell me what the Army depot's maintenance backlog is for fiscal 1999 and what the projected backlog is for, as you men say, double aught.
General REIMER. I can't give you the exact figure and dollar amount. I will provide that for the record.
But I will say your Army experience is absolutely right, is that is what you watch the closest when the dollars are tight in deferred maintenance, not only depot, but at the tactical level. That is where we kind of focused on is to make sure we weren't deferring maintenance until money becomes better some other time, which it never really happens that way. You are on to a very good issue. I just don't know the exact amount.
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I would simply say that we have been underfunding depot maintenance just because of the dollar balance that we have had to deal with, and I think in the next budget we will be able to get depot maintenance at about 80 percent of the requirement. That is what we are shooting for. So there is a backlog. I will have to provide that to you for the record.
Mr. SHERWOOD. I appreciate that. I don't have to have the answer to that right now. But if you could provide me with your current and projected utilization rates for the Army depots for the next couple of years and your projected backlogs by category. I need to know how much the depot maintenance backlog also could be attributed to paying for Bosnia and other contingencies.
And that leads into my other question that I was going to ask General Shelton, but anyone can answer it that would like. We all know that there has been a great deal of money expended in Sudan and Afghanistan and most recently in Desert Fox. I mean, each one of those missiles is about $1 million apiece. And I know that we don't really budget for these unplanned contingency operations. But can you give us an estimate of the unbudgeted cost of Desert Fox, because we need to know if the President is going to ask Congress for a supplemental appropriation to pay for these costs and, if so, when and how much.
Admiral JOHNSON. Let me make a comment, and then anyone else can chime in here. I won't presume to answer for the Chairman, but my sense of it is, sir, that—and I am specifically concerned mostly about Tomahawk missiles in what you just said.
Right now, as I understand it, the whole Desert Fox requirement and specifically the utilization and replenishment of precision weapons from all of us is being analyzed and scrutinized by the JROC. And, as I understand it, that will come out here within another month or so.
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And based on that, speaking just for the Navy, I think that will tell us whether we are in the supplemental business or, for instance, I in the budget I submitted have a—Navy has requested the $113 million to remanufacture somewhere a little over 300 Tomahawk missiles.
Okay. Now based on what comes out of this study and analysis, it may be that, instead of a supplemental, we would ask to reprogram, pull that money back closer aboard to us so that we can shorten the time line until we get those missiles. Those are the kinds of things we are looking at right now. And, as I say, we should have granularity on that I think within another month.
General RYAN. That is my understanding, too. We expended CALCMs and need to replenish them.
General REIMER. May I also comment on it?
Ours is not a missile issue but a deployment issue. There are some costs associated with the latest Southwest Asia deployment as there are costs associated with the tornado that touched down at Fort Campbell and took out a couple of National Guard helicopters, also.
Those we don't have in our budget. And that is what I referred it in my opening statement is that is not covered in the supplemental that you helped give us in 1999.
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So those are unprogrammed costs that we have to either deal with internally or come back with you with a supplemental. My partners have said the same thing. It is being decided now.
Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Next we have the long-suffering Mr. Rodriguez.
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is what I get for leaving for a meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much.
And I know you have been here real long. And I just wanted to say that I recognize that, in terms of both recruitment as well as retainment, I think it requires a variety of things. And you have been mentioning that. I know wages are key. The benefits are essential in terms of retainment. I know that the quality of life is a key issue also. The health care that was mentioned, all of that is a part of that.
I want to add a fifth item that I am hoping that—and all I ask is that you look at it very seriously, and that is the guidelines that you use now for recruitment. You have come up with a high school diploma. Under that criteria, my predecessor, Congressman Tejeda, would not have been able to join.
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. You need to understand that, especially for Hispanic populations—I have got a lot of Hispanic veterans; there is a national—in fact, maybe we should send you a copy that was put out by the National Council of La Raza in terms of the data.
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When you look at the number—I dropped out of school also. Most youngsters, at least Mexican-Americans specifically in terms of Hispanic population, we have got a 49 to 50 percent dropout rate, which means half of us don't even begin to qualify to be able to join. That doesn't mean that we drop out for academic reasons. And so most of the dropouts occur in the junior high, when those youngsters are very young. When they reach 18, 19, 20, that individual has changed; it is not the same person that dropped out. In fact, they usually snap out of it after 6 months. It took me about 6 to 9 months to snap out of it. And I was able, thank God, I was also able to go to summer school and graduate with my class and go and get some additional degrees.
But the bottom line is, if that youngster does not return to school right away, he is never going to come back; because I wouldn't have come back either. What we do is basically go through a process of getting a GED or some other requirement. Which is no indication that that person—just because a person has a GED or some other qualification does not mean that it is lowering the standards because that person did not get a diploma, because that individual is qualified to get into college and other things.
So I would ask that, in the process of looking, that you come up with some other multiple criteria, another instrument, another pilot to be able to assess whether that individual is capable of handling that. We have had in the military, and I am real proud to say that in terms of the Hispanic population, we have had over 38 Medal of Honor recipients that have been Hispanic. During the Vietnam War, which is a high disproportionate number of honor recipients. We also have a high disproportionate number during the Vietnam War that are listed on the memorial that died. One out of every 10 was a Hispanic, which is a high disproportionate number. And we are ready to serve.
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But I get a lot of calls from a lot of individuals that are unable to get in. And that is because of the criteria that have been set, which—I think it is arbitrary; I don't think it really determines. You know, sure it would be great if the person had a high school diploma. But if that person is capable and if you can come up with some other alternatives to determine if that person is capable, because I am not asking you to lower the standards, I am asking you to come up with some other alternatives, because it is—for the person to reach 19, 20 years old, to go back and get a diploma is not an alternative because that is not going to happen. They are going to get a GED and going to get something else.
I do want to indicate to you that in terms of Hispanics, they continue to be underrepresented in both Actives and Reserves. In 1996, 6.9 percent of the membership of the Active forces was Hispanic. Yet, we represent from 18 to 44 percent of the Latinos in the civilian labor force, and we represent about 11.2 percent of that. And there is a big disparity, especially in the Air Force.
I know the best one, the Marines, are the ones that are up to 11-point-something percent. We are almost comparable there to our population. We do well there. I don't know if maybe it is the efforts that they are doing or proximity to where you do your recruiting or where you are. That might make a difference.
But I want to ask to you look at that criteria. Look at where you do your recruiting. Look at how you do your—a lot of times, a lot of us don't look at TV and maybe some hands-on types of things. I know in politics, a lot of other elected officials use TV. We don't. We knock on doors and use some other approach to recruit. So that I would ask that you kind of look at that as a means of approaching that.
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And I would attest to you it that there is a large number of Hispanics out there willing to serve. And I know that national organizations have a real concern about the lack of Hispanics in the military, and I am ready to work with you to come up with those alternatives and those pilots.
I know that there are some other pilots that look at youngsters that have dropped out. None of them were in Texas. None of them were in the Southwest where the Mexican-Americans are at. I indicated to you that I personally had dropped out. And when that occurs, and usually again it occurs in the junior high, within 6 to 9 months, that individual turns around, and they come to grips with what has occurred.
And that is when I made my decision that I was not only going to return, but I was going to go to college. And a lot of them—and you have—and I would ask that you look at your own data from the Hispanic and Mexican-Americans that you have and look in terms of how they have performed in the past. Because I would attest to you that, whatever data you have when it comes to that population, it doesn't cut the mustard.
And we have a lot of data as to why individuals drop out. And the first one has to do with economics. You know, there is—and a lot of other reasons besides. Sure there are academic reasons. And that is why you can use other instruments to determine or use some kind of pilot to determine.
You know, the private sector, one of the things that they do is make sure that, if they need certain people to fill their jobs, they put a prerequisite with the junior colleges or with existing sources out there. That can also be done by you.
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So I do want to thank you for being here, and I am sorry that we have kept you this long. Do you have any comments?
General REIMER. Congressman, first of all, I think you raised a very valid point. I would be remiss if I didn't say that my boss, the Secretary of the Army, Secretary Caldera just had a conference within the last 2 weeks oriented on this very specific issue. And all the points you raised came up at that issue—or that conference. We are trying to deal with them. We know they are underrepresented. We know they make great soldiers. We want to get some of you.
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I want to apologize to you also, because I was present; and I do want to congratulate the Army with those efforts, because I am familiar with those efforts. I am not familiar with some of the others. Apparently the Marines are doing something already that is working. I do want to thank you for that. I apologize for not having mentioned it because he is doing some efforts in trying to see how he could reach out.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would add, Mr. Rodriguez, that we, too, are very concerned that the representation be better than it is. It has improved for us. We are glad of that. We have a ways to go.
To your point about the high school degree, I would just tell you that within the last week, in fact, we have expanded our eligibility envelope, if you will, to include non-high school degree graduates who, in looking at the whole person concept, maintain the armed forces qualification test standard at 50 and above. And we are very, very positive about that as a good move for the Navy and the country.
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Mr. RYAN. We are looking very closely at our recruiting, where we put our recruiters, because I think some of it has to do with the lay-down of the recruiting force, where they are looking, because of our underrepresentation in the Hispanic side. So we will continue. And I would like to work with you on that, too.
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. And Mr. Rodriguez is a good example of what you can do when you want to do it and are motivated properly. Thank you.
Mr. Riley.
Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am reminded of the importance of being here on time.
The CHAIRMAN. We are going to remind you if you aren't.
Mr. RILEY. Gentlemen, I again want to thank each of you individually for being here today. It has been very enlightening. The one thing that I would like to say to each of you, I have had the opportunity to visit some of the Marines over the past 2 years. I had the opportunity to go out and spend some time on a carrier. I went to Bosnia last year, and the one thing that impressed me probably more than anything else is the young men and women that you have in the armed services. It is absolutely remarkable the jobs that they do. So I want to commend you on that. I think that esprit de corps is there. And I was tremendously impressed by everyone that we met.
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General Reimer, I know we have all been here a long time today, and I will try to keep it short. As I was looking down the list of your unfunded requirements, there was noticeably absent anything to do with chemical demil programs. I know last year that the chemical demil programs had a $128 million cut, which is going to significantly impact the building of the chemical incinerator in Anniston, Alabama. Just because of that one cut, they are looking now at probably moving their timetable back 6 months to a year. And I just wonder why it wasn't identified as one of your unfunded requirements.
General REIMER. I am not sure which unfunded requirement list you are looking at—the one I submitted, the one we submitted to the committee last year?
Mr. RILEY. This is one that came from Congressman Hunter yesterday, and it had each one of the Army's priorities. It goes down in a list, conventional demil programs, but it never dealt with chemical.
General REIMER. I am just not familiar with it. Is it the one for the 1999 budget?
Mr. RILEY. It is for the fall of 1998.
General REIMER. The 1998 requirement that you all gave us in terms of giving the unfunded requirements, I think we submitted that. I don't know the details of those right now. I will go back and look at that from the chemical demil standpoint.
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My impression is that we are on track to meet the requirements to demil all of the chemical rounds as prescribed by law. I am not aware of any slippage in that program. But I need to go back and provide that for you, for the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. RILEY. Okay.
According to the people that are building the facility—now, again, they may move this back anywhere from 6 months to a year, or their own time line will probably extend that long—what is the possibility now of replacing some of this money? I think it was around $20, $25 million at Anniston last year. What is the possibility of bringing that back on-line so we can go ahead and meet these treaty requirements?
General REIMER. I need to provide that for you for the record, Congressman; I don't know. I am just not sure of the details of that specific case.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. RILEY. When you look at the overall program, are you still on track now to be treaty compliant?
General REIMER. My understanding is that we are on track to meet the requirements set down by law to demilitarize all the chemical weapons that we are required to do. I am not aware of any slippage. If there is some slippage, I don't know about it, and we will find out.
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Mr. RILEY. Okay. Well, again, I think the Secretary of the Defense is the one that had requested this reduction last year. Do you foresee another reduction for the same type programs this year?
General REIMER. I don't know. As was testified here, we have got at least $1.6 billion in terms of rescissions that I don't know. So to know what is going to happen in 2000, I would just be making a guess. And I don't think anybody is going to do anything that would jeopardize our ability to comply with the law and the treaties that we have signed.
Mr. RILEY. Okay. General, if you would, I would appreciate it if you would check on that—
General REIMER. Yes, sir.
Mr. RILEY. —and get back to me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bateman, the chairman of our Readiness Subcommittee has patiently been waiting.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I paid a very high price in being in a sea power seminar at noon today. But I want to welcome the witnesses and tell them how very pleased we are to have them before the committee again, and most especially, to add to what has already been said about the quality of the forces that you lead.
I am not going to ask a lot of questions today. I want to make some comments and observations, and then I will be submitting some questions for the record that I would like to have responses from all of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Let me say in connection with the funding line and the President's recent pronouncements and rhetoric about the necessity of enhancing the funding for our armed forces or for our national security, it is wonderful to hear. I want it to be more than rhetoric. I am concerned that, even in the rhetoric, it is not adequately meeting your expressed need. Because the figures don't add up even if we make all the assumptions that the administration is making, or has disclosed, about where they are going to find savings, what then—where they are going to reprogram. It doesn't add up to what you said you need.
General Shelton is telling us that, well, quote, ''our most critical needs,'' unquote, would be met. Well, ''our most critical needs'' sounds to me like Washington rhetoric measured against what you told the President your needs were. And I don't want a mismatch that is disguised by some phraseology. I want to know exactly where we stand in terms of meeting your needs.
I am aware, as chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee now for 4 years, that we have had mounting readiness problems. Our committee seemed to have identified it earlier than there was any official recognition of the existence of it. And I can't believe that if we could have identified it, you couldn't have identified it.
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So I am looking for early-on warnings as much as can be given. I don't want to become the victim of some smooth, rhetorical flourishes that, well, it is everything we wanted, it is everything we have really got to have, if it is clearly not what you have got to have.
I want—and I am sure that you did—you to take special note of the comments made by my colleague, Mr. Weldon, much more rapidly, much more vehemently than I am inclined or able to make them. But I think there is a message line in there somewhere.
I have to recall that we gave you and the armed services a larger pay raise for your troops than your commander in chief asked for. And my recollection is that his budget was defended; not applaud or request of us to enhance it. And yet, since September of last year, we hear, my gosh, we have got a crisis in recruitment, retention; and much of it is related to disparity in pay and to a retirement system that didn't happen between last February when the President's budget was submitted and last September when you had a meeting with him and perhaps got his attention for the first time.
I want and will be asking, with reference to the August mission your services were tasked for, the decision-making process that is going on between our National Security Council and our Joint Chiefs of Staff. I want to know how Goldwater-Nichols is in fact working in the real world today with the cast of characters that are being—playing the game today of setting our national security, asking, and our strategy.
I am troubled by much of what I read and what—just a nervousness of about whether that process is working as well as I think it should and whether the collegiality of the Joint Chiefs is being retained.
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I know that the chairman is the President's principal military advisor. But I also know that Goldwater-Nichols contemplates that each member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is entitled by law to register their views with the President. And I want darn well to be sure that you are given that opportunity if that isn't happening.
Mr. Chairman, being almost the last, if not the last, can I be indulged to mention a couple of things for which I will also want to ask some questions.
I am just back from Panama, and I can't tell you how sick and disgusted I am as to what we have allowed to happen there, where we are up again, turning back everything that we have had based upon our treaty obligations with the most bollixed-up, poorly conducted negotiation for what we should be allowed to continue to do by the agreement of the Panamanian Government.
We have made an absolute mess of the negotiations, which, because of their presidential elections, are now totally off the table, nothing going on, nothing can go on until after it is done, at which point we will have closed Howard Air Force Base. We will be out of Rodman. We are on our way out of everything in advance of December 31st.
We are doing that in large measure because in our negotiations someone in the National Security Council gave the marching order and told the Panamanians publicly, even before any private consultation, we will never pay you a dime to stay at any facility after December 31st, 1999.
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To make that statement in the face of the fact that we are spending millions and millions of dollars to do things elsewhere that we could do better in Panama than we are going to be able to do elsewhere, where I am being told that there will a 20 percent degradation in the ability to perform the mission even after we go through a hiatus period of finding other places to conduct the mission, is a totally unacceptable situation.
And I hope that you have registered with the National Security Advisers at the White House your concerns about how this has been handled and that you get the—insist on seizing the earliest opportunity to get us back into the ball game in Panama in terms that reflect the best interest of our security as well as the pocketbook of our taxpayers.
I am just appalled at how dismal the decision-making, the policy-making has been on that subject. Generally, I would be interested and will be asking that you let me know your views on the importance that your services attach to the counter-narcotics mission. Is it something you don't like? Something you want to be free of? Or are you fully engaged in it? And if not, why not? And if you aren't, what we should do about it. These are the things that I will be asking.
I will also be asking each of you to do what you can to persuade the political arm of our national security apparatus that we need better ways of financing the procurement of ships for the Navy. We need better ways to finance the housing that is vitally needed for all your forces and which we could do by long-term leasing if you change the counting rules and the OMB regulations so that we could do intelligent things that would magnify the number of housing units we could provide for your troops, which you say they desperately need and which we agree with you they need, but which you haven't been able to convince the administration to even offer up the kind of money that is necessary the way they have traditionally done it.
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They talk about improvements in the process. I hope they are getting improvements in the process. But we are a long ways from being where we should be if we simply address it with more common sense as to how we fund the things that we all agree upon as being needed.
Well, talking almost as fast as Mr. Weldon, and I thank you for your attentiveness, and I will have some interesting questions which I would like for you to follow up on, and also tell you that, as always, my office and the staff and capabilities of the Readiness Subcommittee are yours to call upon, and we want to know earlier rather than later how we can best serve the interests of the people that you lead.
Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
And now from our outpost, Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Many thanks.
Gentlemen, I hope we can put perhaps a little bit different perspective on some of the questions and observations and orations that we have been subject to today. Is it safe to say, I wish General Shelton was still here. I think he could answer for everyone. I don't require an individual answer.
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But in the midst of all of the questions that came to you about what you asked for or didn't ask for or whether you were adequately representing what your services really need, you were dealing with the same thing that everybody else in a leadership position has to deal with in this Congress, imposed by this Congress—budget caps—were you not? Were you not given figures that you had to try to deal with?
Mr. Chairman, can I indicate that shaking of heads up and down generally means ''yes'' and we can leave it at that?
I will take it as a premise that if you could have gotten more money, you would have taken more money. I know that that has been one of my bottom-line rules in legislation all my life.
On the other hand, I will take it also as a given that all of you made a presentation, not only to the Secretary of Defense, but to the President as to what you felt was at least minimally necessary for you to carry out your duties to which you have all—to which we have all sworn.
So I hope that you won't think that every time you appear before this committee you are going to be berated as having somehow not done your duty or tried within the boundaries of the realism that is presented to you in dollars and cents to have acted in everybody's interest.
Mr. Chairman, I simply commend to you that I think we should deal with the question of budget caps before we start asking the Joint Chiefs to do more than we are capable of doing ourselves.
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With respect to the missiles—and I suppose, Admiral Johnson, I might go to you in some respect in this regard—all of us here in politics I think are subject sometimes to hyperbole. But everybody's intention on the committee is good. When there is some criticism about the missile defense, it is a fact, is it not, Admiral, that we haven't had a successful test yet with regard to the theater missile defense; that we are working on that?
Admiral JOHNSON. We have got a very aggressive test program that is right in front of us, yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The fact that it hasn't succeeded precisely the way we want doesn't mean it is a failure; it means we are aggressively testing, right?
Admiral JOHNSON. Absolutely not.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that a fair statement?
Admiral JOHNSON. Absolutely. Yes.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Before we get again too much into—too much indication to the American public—this is being televised, people are listening in, they are trying to pick it up on the fly—I want to make sure that, at least on the record, it gets out there that we have been spending money, considerable money, in the billions of dollars, through the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, attempting to try and deal with the most immediate threat that we see to troops in the field, which is missiles that are far less than intercontinental. Is that a fair statement?
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Admiral JOHNSON. It is indeed. And that is why our priority, from a Navy perspective, through BMDO has been within the area system before the theater.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It is not to denegrate in any way that we are not concerned about intercontinental ballistic missiles, whether they are nuclear tipped or not, but rather that we have so many dollars to spend, so much time allotted, so much brain power that can be put forward. And on a priority basis, we have moved in the theater missile area as first priority, have we not?
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. And inside that, we have got the area system before the Navy theater.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. Excuse me. We have concentric circles, so to speak—
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. —almost literally as well as logistically and perceptually.
So we are moving on missile defense. And if we can find more dollars for that, fine. But dollars in and of themselves will not change physics. Until we master the intricacies of whatever it takes to make the missiles succeed, until we get to that point, the dollars alone won't do it. The dollars have to keep coming until we are able to do that; correct or fair enough?
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Admiral JOHNSON. Fair enough.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much.
With respect to the question of committing to a budget, I am going—I won't pick on General Krulak; that would be an unwise move in almost any venue. But I am going to refer to General Krulak because he and I have had a relationship for some time, one—in my estimation, a happy one in terms of the results.
I would have asked General Shelton, but I will ask you, General Krulak, more personally, when you were the commander of the Marine forces in the Pacific, one of the things that we discussed, did we not—one of the things we discussed, was it not, was family housing and barracks housing for personnel located in the Pacific, more specifically on Oahu?
General KRULAK. Yes, we did, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And did you not point out when you were commander that you felt there were inadequacies that had to be addressed?
General KRULAK. Yes, I did, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So the fact that you were not going to be able to stay in command up until the time that you could see through to completion what advances we could make in family housing or barracks housing didn't prevent you from making the case for that kind of housing with the hopes that whoever followed you would continue to pursue it. Is that a fair assessment or summary of your attitude and presumptions?
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General KRULAK. That's correct, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So when the President of the United States makes a commitment to you or to—as the Joint Chiefs, or through General Shelton, to $100 billion or whatever it is, he is—he is—may I also presume, then, that you take it that he is making a good-faith commitment based on his best judgment of your request at that time in the hopes that whoever comes after him will see the wisdom of it and carry on? Is that a fair summary?
General KRULAK. I think we all would hope to take the commander in chief at his word. I think that all of us at this table, including General Shelton, would then look directly at that sign underneath Mr. McHugh's name plate that quotes the Constitution and says that the Congress shall have the power to raise armies and maintain navies. And that's where I put my money.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much. Because that was going to be my next point, that the Congress, no Congress can command the next Congress. We can try to set the direction and hopefully do it with enough wisdom and enough foresight that whoever comes after us will see that we had wisdom and foresight and carry on in a manner which we hoped would take place when we first made the decision.
So I think what is needed here, Mr. Chairman, I would submit is a presumption of good faith and good intentions. And after that, it depends on the talent in the room. And I think it is generally agreed that the talent in front of us is considerable. Hopefully, the talent you see when you are looking in this direction somehow approximates what we can see, or what you can see, rather, or hope to see.
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Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to address—and, again, this doesn't necessarily require individual answers. But I think with respect to recruitment, there are two aspects of this, one with respect to recruitment. I hope, if you have not had the opportunity to attend a Youth Challenge program under the auspices of various National Guards, we had a pilot operation, five or ten, and we have put considerably more money into it, upwards of $50 million.
I hope, gentlemen, if you haven't had a chance to attend a program, spend some time with it or even a graduation ceremony. It might sound a bit corny to people who haven't been there. But even a graduation ceremony, in three dimensions, if you get there in three dimensions, see the people face to face, you will be tremendously impressed with what the Guard is doing, the leadership capacities that are being nurtured in the Guard as a result of their association with the Youth Challenge.
And I suggest that a very fertile recruiting ground for all of the services exists in the Youth Challenge. If any of you happen to have some experience with Youth Challenge, if it you could cite it briefly, I think it would be helpful for the record. But if you haven't, that's all right, and I urge you to take a look at it.
Does anybody have some experience or exposure to Youth Challenge program of the Guards?
Okay. Believe me, that is not something I am putting out to try to catch you in something. It is merely a suggestion that this has gotten under way on a bipartisan basis with Mr. Spence and Mr. Skelton and their predecessors. We have gotten the leeway to keep on moving with this, and I think the results are coming in now.
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These are young people whose lives might otherwise have been thrown away, and as a result of the experience they have had in youth challenge, they are turning their lives around, and many of them are eager to participate in our armed services and are joining, and joining eagerly. And I think they form the basis for people who could be retained.
The second part, then, of my final point on recruitment and retention has to do with cash and percentage raises. Again, I don't expect a definitive answer, but I have the honor to be the point person for Mr. Skelton as far as Democrats are concerned on the personnel committee. I am going to be working with Mr. Buyer on this at the subcommittee level. I hope that you will consider the idea, at least in the lower to middle levels, that whatever adjustments we make in pay and benefits, that we consider a cash infusion, at least a one-time cash infusion.
I know you are taking up consideration of having steps and grades to try and retain people so that a promotion reason means something in addition to whatever time you have put in. That has to be done. But I am a believer, I will say, in the idea that if we stick strictly with percentage increases across the board, those at the top will continue to advance more or less exponentially, and those at bottom will continue to be held down in terms of the dollar amount, the cash that is in their pocket, what is available to them.
I notice at least a couple of responses today were if you could put dollars into personnel pockets, that you would like to do that. So, I am hoping that you will consider, if not exclusive, at least a combination where everybody gets an equal amount across the board in dollars as opposed to an equal amount across the board in terms of percentage. It increases the percentage at the bottom considerably, and I think would be noticed immediately by the personnel.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your patience and regard for the important work the committee is trying to accomplish.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie.
I think you gentlemen, you about earned your pay. We apologize for keeping you so late. As I said, you asked for these jobs, and so you got them.
Let me kind of try to sum this thing up. You know, our job, as General Krulak said a while ago, is to provide you with what you need to do the job that you are tasked to do. I have been around this place for a long time, and for the last 4 years I have experienced the reverse of the situation that I have known for the rest of the time. Usually the military has to come to Congress and tell us and ask us for certain things that they think they need to carry out their responsibilities. And usually they have got to convince the Congress of the need for these things, and we go from there. The reverse has been true in recent years. The Congress has found itself in the position of having to try to convince the military to tell us what they need when we found out through other means what we think needs are.
And it makes it difficult because we talk about budget caps, to raise those or get money from the surplus or some way. But to be able to do this, we have got to convince not only the American people, but the rest of Congress why we need to do these things. And if we cannot get our own military leaders and the Department of Defense to tell us that we need more, it makes our job very difficult, if not impossible. And the situation we find ourselves in today, I think, adequately expresses that.
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After having beat up on everybody around for all these years now, finally people have come around to the position that, well, now they are going to agree with what we have been saying all this time. And now the budget coming out is going to reflect that and is going to resolve the whole thing, but it is insufficient. Now how are we going to be able to find enough to make up that gap? Because we haven't been able to get, up until now, someone to back up us up on what the needs are is going to make it that all much more difficult. That is why we are having these hearings. That is why it appears that people beat up on you sometimes and they don't appreciate what you do. But the American people don't understand when they read in the papers that we try to give you things that you don't want and you don't ask for.
As Mr. Weldon said, we have people saying we have got so much pork and all those kind of things in the budget because of our individual concerns in our districts, not because we are trying to defend this country. Which brings us down to the bottom line of the strategic review that we go through and all of that. People say, well, we are going to meet the guidelines that have been set forth for us.
Well, in my estimation for what it is worth, we did that backwards. We say, at home, ''ass backwards.'' Instead of trying to assess the threats that we face in the world and recommending to us what we need to do to build a force to counter that threat, we did it the other way around. We took the budget we thought we were going to be able to have and then built the threat to meet the budget.
In all fairness, that is not true to the American people to be misled in that way with that kind of thinking, because the lives of American people will be given up. We use all of these words of risk and swinging things back and forth and all the rest to get around the fact that we are not prepared as we should be to do these things.
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And I will close with the one example I have been giving for a good while now. From what I have been able to assess in our military forces, we are not able to fight and win those two MRCs. And for a long time people kept saying we are going to do this, high risk and all the rest, and now it is finally starting to come out that indeed we will have some problems.
But why—that didn't just happen, as Mr. Weldon said, all the sudden. All these problems didn't just happen all the sudden. If we could find it out ourselves, why in the world hadn't it come out before from the people who were supposed to tell us about these things instead of being the other way around? That is why we go through all of this. We understand the position you are in. You are appointed to the positions you are in by the Commander in Chief, and you have to salute and go on from there, but the American people do not understand that. So please help us to help yourself. That is all we are asking.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Very quickly, often the question is asked, what is in a word? So often today you hear the phrase ''the post-Cold War era'' which indicates that we are still downsizing, the military is not open for business. I think that is a wrong phrase, and it is a misnomer. You know as well as anyone in our country that this is the era of American world leadership. Pick a place, and it is the military who is backing a great deal of our efforts and making them successful.
General Krulak made a reference a few moments ago to the wooden plaque that is in front of the counsel table. It refers to the Constitution and our duty here in Congress. Article I, Section 8. Another wooden plaque would be appropriate right beside it referring to Congress that says, ''The buck stops here.'' We are the ones who do it. The administration can make recommendations, but we are the ones who authorize and appropriate.
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In that line, we are the ones in this Congress that has the power to help by changing the budget caps. I think so much is impossible without changing the budget caps. So with that, we will do our very, very best to do that. And if we are unable to do that, we will still do our very, very best to supply your needs for those young folks that wear the uniform.
We really appreciate your being with us, your patience, your advice. We look forward to seeing you again. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you again, gentlemen. The meeting will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:08 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
January 20, 1999
PREPARED STATEMENTS
January 20, 1999
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[This information can be viewed in the hard copy.]
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
January 20, 1999
[This information can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
January 20, 1999
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SPENCE
FORCE FLOW FROM BOSNIA TO MAJOR THEATER WAR
The CHAIRMAN. The JCS has concluded that the current state of force readiness and the pace of ongoing contingency operations has created ''moderate to high risk'' in executing the two-war scenario that is the heart of U.S. national military strategy. Would each of you describe in detail how forces would flow from their current operations into theater in the event of crises in the Persian Gulf and/or Korea? What steps would be taken to replace forces transferred from one theater to another - from Bosnia for example - and at what stage you would expect to ask for a partial mobilization of reserve component forces? In general, how would these movements compromise CINC warplans and timelines?
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General SHELTON. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
General REIMER. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]
Admiral JOHNSON. The Joint Staff's Global Naval Force Presence Policy (GNFPP) mandates a specified level Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) presence in Unified CINC theaters. GNFPP, by design, provides the flexibility for inter-theater CVBG crisis response. Moreover, the CVBG is an autonomous and highly mobile combat force and the requirements for inter-theater movement is minimal; however, an increased long term CVBG presence in one theater must of necessity be at the expense of coverage in others due to the limited numbers of Carrier Battle Groups.
In the event of a Major Theater War, deployed CVBG's would be the first naval forces to respond. Follow-on CVBG support would be provided in accordance with the unified CINC warplans and would begin within days of notification for CVBG forces held in ready status (CVBG's recently returned from deployment or next deployer). The remainder of CVBG forces would flow to theater according to their readiness state and warplan timeline guidelines.
Reserve mobilization would occur in accordance with CINC MTW warplans. Detailed warplan force flow is classified. Generally speaking, contingency operations do not significantly impinge upon the Navy's ability to meet CINC warplan requirements or timelines. This is because Navy's forward presence posture provides the flexibility with the in-theater forces necessary to handle initial crisis response for a MTW, while possessing the capability to respond to the full range of emergent and day-to-day contingencies.
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General RYAN. Each of the theaters for major conventional conflict - SWA and Korea have war plans that have as a subset a time phased force deployment plan which lays out the preferred arrival of reinforcements to each theater. Almost all the USAF forces designated for these theaters flow forward in the first 30 days of deployments. In either case of major theater conflict, we would need presidential selective reserve ''call up'' authority for reserve forces to adequately execute the plans.
General KRULAK. First, I should note that the Marine Corps has never claimed to be a 2 MTW force. We support CINC OPLANs and CONPLANs by providing a robust Marine Corps capability to the first MTW and the remainder of our operational forces to the second MTW. When appropriate, we redeploy forces from the first MTW to reinforce Marines in the second. This gives the second MTW a robust Marine capability. Currently, our forward deployed MEU (SOC) forces are preparing for a number of contingencies (African NEOs and support in Kosovo) but few are actually deployed in support of on-going long term deployments (Bosnia, Iraq etc.) which form the basis for your question. Given our current posture of engagement, I would expect no unusual difficulties with our forces deploying in accordance with the approved integrated Time Phased Force Deployment Data for the 2 MTWs. With regard to Marine Corps reserve forces, 99% of those forces are currently integrated into CINC MTW TPFDDs. In our deliberate planning process, we assume that partial mobilization of our reserve forces will occur at C-Day of the first MTW. After mobilization, we would expect those forces to flow as scheduled in the TPFDDs.
BOSNIA AND KOSOVO
The CHAIRMAN. All the services are making major adjustments to the requirements of current contingency operations - the Air Force, with its Air Expeditionary Force concept, and the Army, in regard to the Balkans mission, are increasingly gearing themselves to the demands of rotational requirements, as the sea service already does. What are the long term effects of such adjustments, particularly on the services' ability to surge large forces in the event of major conflicts?
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General SHELTON. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
General REIMER. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]
Admiral JOHNSON. As noted in the question, the Navy has been long accustomed to rotational deployments. Naval forward presence is a cornerstone of the nation's strategic shaping effort. Forward-deployed naval forces are tailor-made for promoting regional stability and deterring aggression by operating in the oceans and littorals anywhere around the globe with credible power and the means to deliver it. Rotational-based forces have proven the most effective means to maintain that presence in both quantity and level of readiness.
Forward-deployed naval forces, already on scene in many parts of the world, represent, to a certain degree, a ''sunk'' cost in terms of crisis response. For example, a Joint Task Force established in 1997 to conduct a full non-combatant evacuation from Zaire cost $236 million. A similarly sized MAGTAF would have cost just over three million dollars to accomplish the same mission. The point is, the normal forward deployed posture of our naval forces makes responding to today's - and future - crises both easier and less expensive in most cases than through the use of other instruments of our nation's military. Still, a sustained increase in contingency operations does have a cost - even for the Navy.
From 1988 to 1998, the Department of the Navy's Total Obligation Authority (TOA) decreased by 40% in constant 1998 dollars. Coincident with this decrease was a marked increase in forward-presence and contingency operations. In fact, owing to the unique capabilities naval forces bring to a turbulent post Cold War world, the peacetime Navy-marine Corps team has never been busier.
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Today, our deployed naval forces maintain a high level of readiness in part by shifting resources from non-deployed forces. Previous declines in funding, coupled with increases in operational tempo, have disproportionately impacted manning levels in the interdeployment training cycle, maintenance backlogs, recapitalization, and modernization. The resulting effect although not captured as a contingency cost per se, is apparent and increasingly acute in non-deployed readiness. It is these non-deployed forces which would be expected to surge in the event of a major conflict.
MAJOR ADJUSTMENTS TO REQUIREMENTS OF CURRENT CONTINGENCY OPS
General RYAN. We feel that our efforts to restructure as an Expeditionary Aerospace Force, or EAF, will enable us to better respond to the entire spectrum of conflict, including major conflicts. The tool that implements the EAF vision is the Aerospace Expeditionary Force, or AEF. The AEF will be comprised of aerospace capabilities (fighters, bombers, tactical airlift, etc.) that provide tailored forces to meet theater CINC needs.
By organizing our forces into AEFs, we will have force packages better trained and highly tailorable to meet the needs of the theater CINC. I am confident that AEFs will not only provide the light, lean and lethal forces needed for responding to small-scale contingencies, but also provide better trained and responsive forces should a major conflict arise. We will now be able to state more precisely how the entire Air Force will be impacted if we are asked to use a substantial portion of those forces to fight in a major conflict.
Because our AEFs will be on a rotational schedule, we will know exactly what forces are available to surge in event of a major conflict. We have sized our AEFs such that the two AEFs ready for employment at any one time would be more than adequate to respond to the numerous contingency responses that have occurred in recent years. Our entire Air Force, however, will remain trained and ready at any time to respond to a major theater war.
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We see nothing but long term benefits to organizing our Air Force into AEFs, not only for the force as a whole but for the nation's defense.
General KRULAK. Currently, our forward deployed MEU (SOC) forces are preparing for a number of contingencies (African NEOs and support in Kosovo) but few are actually deployed in support of on-going long term deployments (Bosnia, Iraq etc.) which form the basis for your question. Given our current posture of engagement, I would expect no unusual difficulties with our Marine forces deploying in accordance with the approved integrated Time Phased Force Deployment Data for the 2 MTWs.
The CHAIRMAN. The Quadrennial Defense Review speaks generally about the requirements for smaller-scale contingencies, describing them as the most likely missions for U.S. Armed Forces over the next two decades and as likely to tie down substantial forces. Is the current force structure and strength adequate to continue to conduct the likely level of contingencies and to meet simultaneously the two-war requirement?
TWO MAJOR THEATER WAR (MTW) CONSTRUCT
General SHELTON. While the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) did predict the demand for smaller-scale contingency (SSC) operations would remain high, the QDR also noted the need to carefully manage the stress to our forces from multiple and sustained SSC operations. Such management includes monitoring our readiness to deter and defeat aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping time frames. Indeed, the QDR acknowledged that while the United States must be able to fight two major theater wars (MTW) from a posture of global engagement, it will need to be extremely selective in making any additional commitments to either engagement activities or SSC operations in the event of one major theater war. In the event of a second major theater war, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from peacetime engagement activities and SSC operations as quickly as possible.
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The current force structure, at required funding and manning levels, is sufficient to respond to two MTWs from a posture of engagement. However, the stress of multiple concurrent SSCs remains a source of both concern and risk. While our forward deployed and ''First-to-fight'' forces remain capable, the readiness of our 2nd MTW forces is eroding. Overall readiness remains within acceptable levels, but we must continue to focus on arresting and reversing this decline.
ADEQUACY OF FORCE
General REIMER. Yes, but it requires the Total Army (Active, Guard, and Reserve) and the second Major Theater War (MTW) will be conducted at high risk. The force structure determined during the Quadrennial Defense Review is the minimum-acceptable force required to execute the National Military Strategy (NMS) with acceptable risk. Army analysis demonstrates that to fight the scenario of two nearly simultaneous MTWs requires an Army combat structure of ten Active component divisions, two Active component Armored Cavalry Regiments, fifteen Army National Guard enhanced separate brigades, and associated combat support and combat service support units. In addition to the forces fighting the MTWs, there are requirements for generating, sustaining, projecting, and receiving the fighting units. Since there is no draft or surge capability, it is important that the eight Army National Guard Divisions be used in a teaming concept to help generate the force and provide for sustained operations. Simultaneously, there are requirements for Homeland Defense. It is also prudent to maintain a Strategic Reserve as a hedge against uncertainty. The Army relies on the Active component, Army National Guard, U.S. Army Reserve and the civilian workforce at the appropriate end strength to accomplish its mission. For the Army to be successful, it takes a Total Army commitment.
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The Army takes its responsibility to size itself very seriously. The Army uses a deliberate and detailed process called Mission Task Organized Forces (MTOF) that considers the appropriate size and mix of forces to meet the full range of Army requirements as identified in the NMS—from conducting Homeland Defense and Humanitarian Assistance Operations to Small Scale Contingencies, and even Major Theater Wars. We have integrated the results of the MTOF effort into the Total Army Analysis (TAA) Process, which we conduct every two years. Presently, the Army is once again conducting TAA and will make recommendations to the leadership as to the appropriate size and organization of the Army.
Admiral JOHNSON. Naval forces, by their presence and combat capability, provide the necessary force structure to meet contingency requirements and support the two-war requirement. In a worst case scenario whereby we are engaged on two fronts and engaged with contingencies elsewhere, there can be little doubt that prioritization of military effort would have to occur, to include mobilization of reserve forces and the inclusion of allies and coalition partners.
It is important to remember that our nation shares interests and values with many other nations around the world. Our most recent contingencies, from Desert Storm to the Balkan Crisis, illustrate this fact. Allied and coalition participation was, and is, integral in the success of these operations.
QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW
General RYAN. The current Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP) that is developed from the National Security Strategy and subsequent National Military Strategy, apportions a fiscally constrained force structure capable of conducting two near-simultaneous major theater wars. In the event of one major theater war, the United States would need to be extremely selective in making any additional commitments to either engagement activities or smaller-scale contingencies. In addition, the United States would likely begin disengaging from those activities and operations not deemed vital to national interests in order to better posture the forces to deter a second major theater war. In the event of two major theater wars, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from peacetime engagement activities and smaller-scale contingencies and re-directed to the MTW.
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General KRULAK. After Desert Storm, the Marine Corps conducted a Force Structure Planning Group effort to determine the prudent post-Cold War Marine Corps force structure (i.e., one that provided the minimum 3-division, 3-wing ''core'' force in readiness capability). It concluded that an associated end strength of approximately 177,00 active duty Marines was required to fully man the structure called for by our legislated roles and functions. We still believe a force of approximately 177,00 is required for the Marine Corps to conduct likely contingency requirements at a sustainable level and to meet simultaneously the two-war requirement. Although our optimal force level is approximately 177,000 Marines, our authorized end-strength has been reduced to a current level of 172,200.
As a result of OSD's 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR), Marine Corps end-strength was reduced from 177,000 to 174,000. The BUR reductions, coupled with an increase in OPTEMPO, introduced a degree of risk in our ability to meet all mission requirements. Our forward deployed forces remained fully ready, be we had less operational depth behind them. Readiness was not compromised, but sustainability was affected.
The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) further reduced Marine Corps end-strength from 174,000 to 172,200. As with the BUR reductions, we have maintained our combat forces at a high degree of readiness but sustainability and operational depth have been eroded. We have managed to meet our operational requirements through the extraordinary hard work and dedication of our Marines. However, we can only push our Marines so hard and can only stretch our resources so far. The QDR reductions make it extremely difficult to sustain the current OPTEMPO without breaking our Marines.
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In addition to these force structure reductions, we are also faced with increasing requirements to provide Marine security guards for the U.S. embassies. The Department of State (DOS) has identified a requirement for an additional 370 Marine security guards over the next three to five years. We will continue to meet this requirement, but without an end-strength increase we will have to take these Marines from units that are already overtaxed. This is especially difficult because of the number of NCOs needed to support the embassies. Our NCOs are the backbone of the Marine Corps so the additional support to DOS has a cascading impact on unit cohesion and training.
The Marine Corps is an extremely lean fighting force which is focused on being the Nation's ''versatile, expeditionary force in readiness...ready to suppress or contain international disturbances short of war...most ready when the Nation is least ready'' in compliance with the intent of the 82d Congress. However, we need to ensure an adequate force structure to sustain this readiness in today's turbulent world.
The CHAIRMAN. The JCS has identified retirement and pay reform as the keys to easing much of the near-term personnel problems plaguing the services. Yet service surveys and the findings of this committee indicate that the pace of operations and the hardships that result—especially lost family time—are the top concerns of servicemembers. How will pay and retirement increases address these concerns? What other efforts are you making to address these concerns without compromising force readiness?
PAY AND RETIREMENT INCREASES/PACE OF OPERATIONS
General SHELTON. The pace of operations certainly has major personnel management implications, but inadequate pay and retirement benefits have also been consistently identified in service retention surveys as top dissatisfiers. While steps have been taken within the Joint Community to ease operational strains on units, such as joint exercise reductions, the Services are in the best position to address efforts they are taking to cope with the personnel impacts of rising mission demands. Increases in pay and retirement benefits are intended to complement the Services' tempo management efforts by providing a level of compensation commensurate with the increasing sacrifices required of our servicemembers. These initiatives cut across all the Services and support the continued success of a professional volunteer Force.
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RETIREMENT AND PAY
General REIMER. First of all, I totally agree, and I do not think anybody is saying that correction of the retirement system and pay reforms is the total answer. However, the perceived pay gap and benefits reductions and the reduced retirement package and frequent deployments are all major factors in recent mid career losses for both officers and noncommissioned officers. Although a soldier's duty location, particularly in high cost areas, plays a major role in impacting pay, we have also seen losses of junior officers to civilian jobs, which offer not only a higher wage, but a comparable benefits package with greater stability. The same holds true for noncommissioned officers in marketable skills and leadership positions, who are highly sought after by civilian employers. Addressing pay, in conjunction with a competitive benefits package, will greatly enhance mid-career retention. Frequent deployments and lost family time are factors that, when coupled with perceptions of pay gaps and reduced retirement packages cause soldiers to consider alternatives to military service. In the current lucrative civilian economy, we have seen the effects of deployments that are further compounded by the compensation issue.
The Army Research Institute 1998 survey found that overall quality of Army life and the amount of time separated from family were the second and third most common reasons for separation. For this reason, we have emphasized such things as Barracks Modernization and Army Family Housing improvements in the development of the fiscal year 2000 budget. These are the types of quality of life issues that re-enlist a family.
The amount of time separated from family has also had a significant impact on our soldiers. We are turning to the ''Total Force'' to help manage the high operating tempo. The Army has lessened the impact on personnel by rotating units; selectively using Reserve Component forces to augment operational mission tasking; global sourcing for operational deployments; using contract civilians where feasible; and establishing a deployment stabilization policy to minimize the probability of repetitive deployments by individual soldiers. As an example, the 49th Armored Division, Texas Army National Guard volunteered and is tentatively scheduled to deploy in the spring of 2000 as part of the Stabilization Force-Seven rotation to Bosnia. This type of ''Total Force'' utilization will help reduce the overall OPTEMPO and personnel tempo (OPTEMPO).
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Managing high operational and personnel tempo represents one of the most significant challenges we will face in the year ahead. One way Congress can help is to expand the Active Duty Special Work to the Active Component program, otherwise known as Temporary Tour of Active Duty. Expanding this program would allow us to bring more Reserve component soldiers onto Active duty, thus allowing us more flexibility in managing the force. Currently, we are identifying changes to mobilization requirements and funding restrictions on multiple component units that must be addressed if we are going to fully leverage a Total Army made up of 54 percent Reserve component soldiers.
Admiral JOHNSON. Navy leadership is fully cognizant of the need for a multi-faceted approach if we are to succeed in improving personnel readiness. While there is no one single remedy to this complex problem, adequate compensation consistently ranks among the top reasons cited for leaving the Navy. Consequently, a boost in the military compensation package is fundamental to the long range solution, and we strongly endorse the DoD compensation triad (basic pay increase of 4.4 percent in FY00 and 3.9% each year through FY05; pay table reform to recognize and reward performance; and repeal of the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 (REDUX)) as necessary steps toward addressing pay gap and compensation concerns.
While the compensation triad will begin to address our recruiting and retention concerns, it will not ensure adequate retention in many of our undermanned, highly skilled, warfare specialties. Historically, targeted bonuses have proven highly effective and very cost efficient in attacking these retention problem areas. This year, we plan to make greater use of this proven strategy, and are seeking congressional support for several special pay incentives and bonuses to deal with key personnel problem areas.
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The availability of Quality of Life (QOL) programs and services are also important and contribute greatly to retention and readiness. To this end, we have established QOL Master Plans to provide standards for QOL programs and services. Our major goals for QOL, aside from adequate and fair monetary compensation, include appropriate bachelor and family housing, access to high quality medical care, and effective programs for community and family support. We believe our array of QOL programs are an essential component of the overall career benefits package. The Voluntary Education (VOLED) program provides a particularly good example of the importance support programs can play in overall compensation as recent studies show a strong relationship between the use of VOLED and increased retention.
Quality in the work environment is also important to retention and overall readiness. Not having the right tools, facilities and equipment to do the job efficiently and effectively detracts from readiness and can quickly become a strong disincentive for making the Navy a career. Consequently we are pursuing a number of initiatives to more efficiently utilize the resources we have, while instituting a new paradigm for the way we work. In an effort to reduce workloads and the long work hours and family separations during the homeport Inter-Deployment Training Cycle, we have taken steps to reduce and consolidate inspections, increase the availability of spare parts, and accelerate equipment modernization efforts where possible. Additional programs such as the Secretary of the Navy's ''Smart Work'' program, ''Information Technology for the 21st Century'' (IT-21), the ''Revolution in Business Affairs'' and ''Strategic Business Plan'' are but a few more examples of ongoing efforts that will help sustain our efficacy for tomorrow while making the most of the resources we have today.
General RYAN. People continue to be our most vital resource and as such we are committed to recruiting and retaining high caliber people. Improving retention requires improvement in numerous areas and since 1995, the Air Force publishes the Quality of Life Focus paper—highlighting seven areas that impact our Quality of Life (QoL) and in turn retention. Two of the seven QoL areas are retirement and pay. In this context we have developed the compensation triad (restoring the value of retirement, narrowing the pay gap and reforming pay table) to address these QoL and retention issues.
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A December 1998 survey of more than 600 separating members (who are under the Military Retirement Reform Act (MRRA) retirement plan) revealed that the MRRA retirement plan was the number one factor cited by our enlisted members for leaving. Of those surveyed, 87% (all under MRRA) disagreed with the statement that ''Military retirement provides a good incentive to serve 20 years or more.'' Roughly 80% of those separating did not feel that ''The retirement system is fair and equitable.'' Finally, one in three enlisted members said they would stay in the Service if they had been under a 50% of base pay retirement system versus the 40% provided by MRRA.
Pay is another major element in retaining a high quality force. History shows a correlation between retention and pay. In 1982 and 1983, the Air Force reached one of the highest reenlistment rates, 81% for 2nd Term and 96% Career Airmen, after receiving pay raises of 11.7% in 1981 and 14.3% in 1982 (civilian wages increased 9.1% and 9.3% respectively).
During the FY97 Quality of Life Survey, less than 30% of all enlisted members said pay was fair and equitable. More recently, the 1998 Separation Survey revealed that the majority of enlisted members and officers felt they could make more money in the private sector (88% enlisted, 78% officers). Seven out of 10 enlisted members did not agree that ''Basic pay is fair and equitable.'' Enlisted respondents said ''more pay'' was the single thing the Air Force could do to keep them in uniform. One in two enlisted members would stay if annual pay adjustments were equal to or higher than private sector wage growth.
RAND research indicates that restoring the value of military retirement, narrowing the pay gap and reforming the new pay table will increase overall retention by 6% and increase the proportion of enlisted members who stay in service for a 20-year career by 20%. In both 1997 and 1998, surveys of First Sergeants indicated compensation and benefits as the #1 factor having the ''most impact on retaining quality people.''
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As part of its QoL effort to reverse negative retention trends, the Air Force continues to pursue other initiatives in addition to retirement and pay. For example, the introduction of the Expeditionary Aerospace Force concept will go a long way in helping our airmen predict their deployments. In addition, we have reduced the number of exercises, competitions, and inspections, implemented post deployment stand-down, and established video links so deployed members get to see and talk to families. Construction programs will improve our family housing, dormitories and child development centers. We also increased promotion selection rates in FY98: SMSgt, 7.96%, highest in 4 years; MSgt and TSgt, 22.52% and 18.51% respectively, highest in 12 years; and SSgt, 22.65%, highest in 27 years.
For the Air Force to continue attracting and retaining quality people, we must be competitive with contemporary labor markets and restore the value of the Military Retirement System (MRS) and keep military pay competitive with private sector wages. We feel our compensation triad in conjunction with the other initiatives in our QoL program strikes the right balance between the retention needs of the service and the QoL needs of our airmen and families.
General KRULAK. Retention is a complex issue. A wide variety of factors influence every Marine's decision to remain in the Corps or return to civilian life. Pay and benefits are always a chief concern, as are the pace of operations and time away from families. No single factor exists that can be ''fixed'' that will alleviate all of our Marines' concerns. Still, pay and retirement provisions are fundamental to all stay/leave decisions. While pay and retirement increases do not directly impact operational tempo or time away from families, a connection is still present. For example, we are coping with aviator shortages by assigning many of our aviators to cockpit assignments only. While this keeps our readiness at acceptable levels, these Marine officers are missing out on valuable and necessary non-cockpit assignments. Naturally, the pilots remaining in cockpit assignments for unusually long periods of time will experience more time away from families. If we were able to retain more aviators through pay and retirement increases, they would be able to assume normal non-cockpit assignments which would improve their quality of life from the family separation perspective.
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We address a Marine Corps unit's pace of operations through the effective scheduling of deployments. Our standard unit deployment cycle calls for a 6-month deployment with a turnaround ratio of at least 2:1 (twelve months back). We also depend upon our commanders to assign individual Marines to deploying detachments in an equitable manner to ensure no individual is over-deployed. However, like in the previous example, shortages of Marines with critical skills can result in over-deployment. Known requirements for deployments and joint and other exercises will continue to cause Marines to spend a great deal of time away from home. However, we will be able to effectively manage this constant tempo by continuing to use our time-tested rotational deployment scheme. As long as most of the contingencies that the Marine Corps responds to are absorbed by our forward deployed forces, our pace of operations and subsequent time away from family should remain reasonable.
SOUTHWEST ASIA (SWA) UNBUDGETED OPERATIONS
The CHAIRMAN. Operations Desert Fox and the generally elevated pace of operations in the Persian Gulf constitute yet more unbudgeted contingency operations. The cost of expended munitions alone for Desert Fox must be hundreds of millions of dollars. What is your current estimate of the unbudgeted, incremental costs of Desert Fox and do you expect to come to Congress with a supplemental appropriations request to offset such costs? When do you expect to present such a request?
General SHELTON. The current Fiscal Year 1999 incremental estimate for Desert Thunder (the aborted strike in November), Desert Fox, and the increased tempo of activity since then is expected to be just under $218 million. This estimate does not include the cost to replace munitions. The current plan to replace munitions includes accelerating the conversion of Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) to Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCMs), and accelerating the upgrade of older variants of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM). Additionally, a Joint Requirements Warfighting Capability Assessment team is evaluating the adequacy of inventories to meet our requirements and modernization alternatives. The result of this assessment will further define the cost to replace munitions.
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Options to cover these unbudgeted operations and the munitions cost are being explored and a decision should be made soon. Our preference is to request a non-offset emergency supplemental appropriation. Forcing the Services to absorb the operational costs will jeopardize the recent gains made in protecting readiness programs.
SUPPLEMENTAL
General REIMER. The Army's contribution to Desert Fox was a critical, if less visible, component of the operation's success. We rapidly deployed about 2,000 soldiers, adding to the 3,000 already forward-deployed in the region. Together, those forces provided a crucial deterrent to any threatening activity by Iraqi ground forces. Additionally, another 8,000 soldiers remained in a heightened readiness posture throughout the operation, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. The impact of such a commitment on an already stretched force is significant. Along with our Desert Thunder costs, which were used to surge forces to Southwest Asia earlier this fiscal year, our combined Desert Thunder and Desert Fox incremental requirements total $44 million. Currently, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget are working to determine packaging and timing of additional emergency supplemental requests for all Department of Defense requirements, including our other new and unprogrammed contingency operation requirements, such as support to Hurricane Mitch relief efforts and support to the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission.
OPERATION DESERT FOX COSTS
Admiral JOHNSON. The Navy has incurred the following costs associated with carrying out ''DESERT THUNDER'' and ''DESERT FOX'' (by appropriation):
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In addition, the Navy has been tasked to maintain a 1.0 CVBG presence in the Gulf for an indefinite period of time. This increased presence is estimated to cost $32.4 million through the end of this fiscal year. Estimated cost by appropriations are as follows:
With respect to ordnance, 330 Tomahawk cruise missiles were expended during ''DESERT THUNDER'' and ''DESERT FOX''. The sunk cost for those missiles was $324M (a weighted average of procurement cost from 1992 to 1997). The sunk cost of air launched ordnance expended is $32.3M. Details are listed below:
For a total sunk cost for expended munitions of $356.3M.
The Navy is not currently planning to replace all the munitions expended during ''DESERT THUNDER'' and ''DESERT FOX'', since the HARM, ROCKEYE, and General Purpose bomb inventories are adequate for of our requirements. Our focus is on replacing the precision guided munitions. We estimate that it would cost $124 million to convert 324 less capable and older Block IID missiles to the Block IIIC version to replace the expended missiles. Another $9.1 million would be needed to replace expended air launched precision guided munitions.
These munitions replacement estimates along with the estimated manpower and operating costs have been provided to the OSD Comptroller who is considering including them in a future Supplemental budget request.
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ELEVATED PACE OF OPERATIONS IN PERSIAN GULF
General RYAN. The current FY99 estimate for Desert Thunder (Build-up in Nov), Desert Fox (Build-up/Strike), and Desert Fox (Post) are:
The Department is currently working on a Emergency Supplemental request to be submitted to Congress. Actual submission date is unknown.
General KRULAK. The current Marine Corps estimate for the unbudgeted, incremental costs of operations in the Persian Gulf is $4,192K. This figure includes $2,617K of O&MMC and $1,575K of MPMC. These figures above include costs incurred for both Desert Thunder (the November buildup of forces in the Gulf) and Desert Fox (the December buildup and subsequent air strikes against Iraq). To date, we are not aware of any munitions costs incurred by the Marine Corps. All of our aviation munitions are funded with blue (Navy) dollars.
The Marine Corps does intend to request reimbursement for these unfunded expenditures. An initial estimate of our incremental costs was forwarded to the Navy in January. We believe that the formal OSD request for this reimbursement will also include funding for unbudgeted operations in Kosovo, and that OSD is waiting for Kosovo deployment plans to solidify before submitting that estimate.
READINESS REPORTING
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The CHAIRMAN. General Reimer, you have said that budget shortfalls and other problems are degrading the quality and quantity of home-station training, and that the effects are apparent at combat training centers. Yet the official training readiness of Army units remains high. How can you account for this disparity? What changes to the Army's readiness reporting system should be made to acknowledge lost or degraded training? In your judgment, what is the value of deploying Army units to the National Training Center that have not had task-force field training at home station?
General REIMER. In fact, the Army's official readiness reports reflect an overall decline in training readiness—units have been reporting lower training readiness levels over recent months. Specifically, the percentage of units reporting T1 has fallen from 71 percent in June to the current 50 percent. This is consistent with the observations we have made at our Combat Training Centers (CTCs) that units are arriving at a lower-level of proficiency than they have in the past, and frankly, at a lower level than we would like. At the same time, the decline in our readiness reports and other objective indicators essentially lagged behind the reports of declining readiness from commanders and soldiers in the field. As we know from the past, normally the anecdotal reports precede the statistical indicators. That is a concern.
The Army is in the process of reviewing our readiness reporting procedures to provide a better reflection of readiness under our current National Military Strategy. We anticipate making some changes to our system, and we are on track to present those changes to Congress soon.
Both the Forces Command (FORSCOM) Commander and myself continue to be concerned about the lower proficiency levels of units deploying to the CTCs, and we are taking action to reverse it. The Army's Inspector General has been looking hard at this trend for over a year. The FORSCOM Commander is in the process of reinstituting the requirement for battalion/task force training at home station prior to CTC rotations and will require that training to be externally evaluated according to Army training doctrine. That said, we do not use the CTCs as a tool to measure readiness. We start with a unit's baseline proficiency and seek to improve it during a 28-day rotation that is as close to war as we can safely make it. This continues to be our philosophy.
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ROTATION POLICY
The CHAIRMAN. The Army has chosen to give European units a three-year break from duty in Bosnia to allow them to recover from repeated deployments there. What do you see as the long-term, cumulative effects of Bosnia-type missions on the combat readiness of those units? Are there any changes that should be made in the conduct of Bosnia operations to better preserve warfighting readiness among forces deployed in the Balkans?
General REIMER. Units in Europe have been given a two-year break from duty in Bosnia to recover from repeated deployments. Small Scale Contingencies (SSCs), such as our mission in Bosnia, usually require units to perform tasks that are different from those they would perform during wartime. The longer the unit is deployed, the more its collective proficiency in conducting warfighting tasks diminishes. The degree of degradation depends on how greatly tasks related to the SSC, also known as Operations Other Than War, differ from warfighting tasks. Combat support and combat service support tasks degrade slower since their SSC tasks correlate better to wartime tasks. Upon return from an SSC, a unit usually takes approximately nine months to recover, assuming that there is no other mission interference and training ranges, facilities, and ammunition are available.
Deployed units could, within limits, better preserve their warfighting readiness if they had the resources nearby (ranges and facilities) to conduct company level and above collective training. Limiting factors would include available training time and personnel requirements for the primary peacekeeping mission. Careful study of the potential benefits of establishing additional training sites against the cost of both dollars and the operating tempo would be required.
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The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Johnson, you have chosen to curtail Navy training during the interdeployment cycle to lighten the burden of constant sea duty on sailors. What are the risks associated with this decision? What are the risks associated with conducting most higher-level training at the last minute prior to deployment? Are carrier battle groups deploying to sea at lower states of readiness than a decade ago?
Admiral JOHNSON. As part of an effort to reduce the workload on our sailors, I issued a directive to reduce administrative burdens, inspections, and assist visits imposed on our fleet during the Inter Deployment Training Cycle (IDTC) by 25%. By consolidating training evolutions and eliminating redundancy, we have achieved greater efficiency and at the same time improved the quality of life of Sailors. The consolidation of some training evolutions may appear to be a reduction in overall training time, as measured on an absolute scale, but the efficiencies and improved focus on critical elements outweigh the loss of.total ''hours logged'' and will, we believe, improve stability and the overall readiness posture in the IDTC.
As I have testified previously, Carrier Battle Groups today, in general, are deploying at a lower level of readiness then they were a decade ago. While nearly every unit in the past decade has deployed combat-ready, the degree of readiness has diminished over time. It is important to note that Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) specifies a range of readiness each unit must be within before entering their theater of operations. Over the past decade, Navy has remained within this range. But more units today are trending towards the lower end of the spectrum. Stabilizing and improving the efficiency of the interdeployment training cycle will help reverse this trend.
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The CHAIRMAN. Please describe the readiness of the battle groups in the Persian Gulf prior to, during and since Operation Desert Fox. Did they have their full complement of personnel? In the case of the USS Enterprise group, did it deploy at full states of readiness or did it complete its training while underway? What will be the effect on the fleet of increasing carrier coverage in the gulf to a full-time requirement?
Admiral JOHNSON. On November 6, 1998 the USS Carl Vinson and USS Enterprise Carrier Battle Groups (CVBGs) commenced their scheduled six month deployments. While the Vinson CVBG deployed in combat-ready condition, personnel shortfalls within VF-32 prevented Enterprise from achieving similar status until shortly before entering the Persian Gulf. Just prior to Operation Desert Fox (16-19 December), the only Carrier in the Persian Gulf was Enterprise. During this period of time, all Enterprise CVBG units, in the Gulf, were combat-ready. During Operation Desert Fox, units remained in this state of readiness other than when munitions were depleted. Immediately following Operation Desert Fox (20 December), Vinson relieved Enterprise in the Gulf and continues to operate there today in a combat ready status.
With regard to 1.0 carrier presence in the Gulf, maintaining this requirement does not present the Navy any significant scheduling challenges because it can be accomplished with regularly scheduled forward-deployed forces. However, this requirement does mean there will be less carrier presence elsewhere namely the Mediterranean and/or the Pacific. Continuous forward presence is our strongest deterrent against would-be aggressors and the carrier is the centerpiece of our warfighting CINC's strength. While the inherent mobility of our carriers does provide a certain degree of flexibility to transition quickly from one region to another, providing near constant carrier presence in each CINC's area of responsibility (AOR) is considered the ideal arrangement.
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SPARE PARTS
The CHAIRMAN. General Ryan, the Air Force has consistently underestimated and underbudgeted for spare parts in recent years. Even between September 1998 and this January, your estimate of annual unfunded requirements increased from $2.5 billion to ''$4 to $5 billion'' not including pay and retirement reform. How do you account for these differences?
General RYAN. The $2.5 billion FY99 Air Force Unfunded Priority List (UPL) was focused on our most pressing FY99 needs. In September 1998, I stated that our shortfall was 4-5 billion dollars and stated that requirement again in January 1999. The FY00-FY03 requirements included on the FY99 UPL were the ''outyear'' extensions of those pressing FY99 requirements that we believed that would stop the decline in near-term readiness. The FY99 UPL did not include about $2 billion annually in needed modernization or infrastructure shortfalls. Even with the additional $2 billion, we still cannot modernize at optimal rates, and our deteriorating infrastructure will take decades to reverse.
SHORTAGE OF SPARE PARTS
The CHAIRMAN. Air wings throughout the service report a shortage of spare parts in their go-to-war ''WRSK kits'' that would severely curtail their ability to sustain operations during the first month of combat in the event of a major theater war. How would you deal with such a demand without stripping the rest of the fleet of spares?
General RYAN. Even though MC rates have declined 9.6% since FY91, and readiness rates have dropped 17% since 1996, warfighting assessments continue to show we can support a two MTW commitment, although it places a heavy strain on the logistics system and would mean greater risk in terms of casualties. Mobility Spares Packages for most weapon systems are built to support a 30-day requirement. We would have to source the shortages in these packages from our non-engaged forces just as we do today for our forward stationed and forward deployed forces.
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AIR EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
The CHAIRMAN. The Air Expeditionary Force concept is an effort to deal with the demands of no-fly-zones and other short-term rotational requirements. How will it affect the Air Force's ability to surge large forces in the event of a major theater war? What is the effect on training for large wars?
General RYAN. The EAF concept is much bigger than a means of solving short term rotational requirements. We feel that our efforts to restructure as an Expeditionary Aerospace Force, or EAF, will enable us to better respond to the entire range of conflict, including major conflicts. The tool that implements the EAF vision is the Aerospace Expeditionary Force, or AEF. The AEF will be comprised of aerospace capabilities that provides tailored forces to meet theater CINC requirements.
By organizing our forces into AEFs, we will have force packages better trained and highly tailorable to meet the needs of the theater CINC. I am confident that AEFs will not only provide the light, lean and lethal forces needed for responding to small-scale contingencies, but also be able to provide better trained and responsive forces should the need arise for a more involved response. We will also be able to set aside time to train and rest the force to meet requirements for large-scale war.
Because our AEFs will be on a rotational schedule, we will know exactly what forces are available to surge in event of a major conflict. We have sized our AEFs such that the two AEFs ready for employment at any one time would be more than adequate to respond to the numerous contingency responses that have occurred in recent years. The entire Air Force, however, will remain trained to respond to a major theater war.
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Therefore, training for MTWs will be unaffected under the EAF concept, as today, we do not tier readiness. Our combat forces are committed to respond to CINC OPLANS within 30 days. Therefore, tiering readiness is not an option for us. We will continue to train to the high standards required under the plans established for major theater war. We anticipate the forces being better trained under this concept, as they will be able to better schedule mission specific, recurring and professional military training well in advance. Knowing well in advance when their particular AEF is supposed to be deployed or on call for 90 days, our forces will not have to be concerned about being pulled out of training early due to an unexpected deployment as sometimes occurs today.
We see nothing but long term benefits to organizing our Air Force into AEFs, not only for the force as a whole but for the defense of the United States.
The CHAIRMAN. General Krulak, you have emphasized that the Marine Corps has paid the price for near-term readiness by delaying modernization. Yet the increasing deployment demands on a smaller Corps, with smaller air squadrons, infantry divisions, and other component units, is resulting in greater readiness and personnel problems among non-deployed units. How would this affect the Corps' ability to surge large forces, as it did during Operation Desert Storm?
General KRULAK. Operation Desert Storm was a unique conflict, and should not be used as a measuring stick for determining readiness. Some of today's readiness shortfalls existed during Desert Storm, but for the most part did not impact on our success. Today your Marines are well trained, well equipped and ready to meet the likely challenges at hand. An exact replica of Desert Storm fought today would result in similar success. However, the force levels necessary to fight and to carry out missions in other regions would be impossible to replicate.
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The CHAIRMAN. Increasingly, non-deployed units are required to curtail and cancel all but individual and small-unit training. Many infantry battalions, for example, now conduct their combined-arms exercises at 29 Palms, California after their sea duty, when their personnel strength is degraded, rather than prior to deployment. How does this diminished training during the inter-deployment cycle affect the readiness of Marines at sea? How would it affect combat performance in the event of a theater war?
General KRULAK. During each fiscal year, the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twenty-nine Palms, California, hosts ten Combined Arms Exercises (CAX)'s, eight by active duty units, and two by reserve forces. This schedule results in each active duty infantry battalion conducting a CAX approximately every three years. The Marine Corps CAX program is one of many training events undertaken by a unit. Participation in a CAX is a training opportunity, but a unit's completion of a CAX is not, by itself, an indication of a unit's overall readiness for combat. With the implementation of the Unit Cohesion Program, the majority of our infantry battalions will conduct their training at Twenty-nine Palms prior to a scheduled deployment with those Marines that will participate in that deployment.
If a unit is scheduled to deploy as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, they undergo a rigorous 180 day training schedule prior to a deployment. Approximately 90% or more of a unit's personnel are locked on 180 days prior to their deployment. A CAX is not scheduled during the MEU(SOC) workup period of 180 days, because it is not considered an integral part of MEU predeployment training.
As a direct result of the Unit Cohesion Program, non-deployed units are not required to curtail or cancel training. Combat performance in the event of a theater war will not be affected.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER
Mr. HUNTER. I am not talking about just pay, but the aspect of increases. Each of the services has given us their increase. Is there a DOD-wide increase that is also needed above and beyond the present budget blueprint?
General SHELTON. Mr. Hunter has referred to a National Missile Defense (NMD) increase of $6.9 billion which is made up of two parts. The first part includes a $6.3 billion topline increase for NMD across the Future Years Defense Program as proposed in the Fiscal Year 2000 President's Budget. The second part includes $0.6 billion appropriated by Congress in October 1998 as part of the $1.0 billion Fiscal Year 1999 Emergency Supplemental for combined NMD/Theater Missile Defense use.
The $6.3 billion increase for NMD depicted above is part of the proposed $112 billion topline increase to the Fiscal Year 2000 President's Budget. Other significant Defense-Wide increases include $1.1 billion to supplement existing Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs like warhead dismantlement and reactor core conversion, as well as increased funding for several Intelligence Programs.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HEFLEY
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Mr. HEFLEY. So can any of you tell me at this time, and maybe this will not be possible, but can you tell me beginning with General Reimer what you think in the Army and the Navy and so forth you have too much excess of in terms of base facilities?
General REIMER. Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is the best means available to reshape our infrastructure for the 21st century and lower the fixed costs of owning and managing installations. By fiscal year 2001 (FY01), when the first four BRAC rounds are completed, the Army will have successfully closed 112 installations and realized $953 million in annual savings. The Army uses these funds for readiness and modernization. BRAC also enables the redesign of the Army's business processes, particularly those involving functional consolidations, and builds modern, efficient facilities to support future missions. However, opportunities for more savings still exist.
The Army has not analyzed excess infrastructure in detail since the 1995 BRAC process, although we did conduct an analysis in 1996-1997 timeframe in conjunction with the force structure-focused Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The QDR process used a simple comparison of force structure to installations to conclude that there was excess infrastructure. The basis of this conclusion was that since force structure was falling by one-third and infrastructure was declining by only 21%, there must be excess capacity. The resulting estimate indicated that as many as 16 Army installations could be cut. A more rigorous analysis would, I believe, result in a lower number, once other factors were considered.
In April 1998, Office of the Secretary of Defense delivered a report to Congress reaffirming the need for additional BRAC rounds. The report looked only at major installations and applied different metrics to different categories of installations. In the Army's case, it looked at 74 installations in 8 categories. The result was an estimate of DoD excess of 23 percent overall and an estimate of Army excess of 20-28 percent. Although a more detailed analysis may result in a lower number, it is clear that the Army has significant excess capacity. The Army cannot identify its specific excess without first conducting a detailed analysis that considers factors in addition to force structure (e.g., future force design, basing, deployment, and re-engineering of operational processes). The Army has not yet initiated such a study, in part because planning for a future BRAC was Congressionally prohibited prior to submission of the DoD BRAC report in April 1998. The broad analyses conducted to date clearly support the need for two additional rounds of BRAC.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. UNDERWOOD
BUDGETARY
Mr. UNDERWOOD. To be sure, there is a readiness dilemma in our military. Years of doing ''too much with too little'' are now beginning to catch up with us in the name of retention, recruiting shortfalls, spare parts shortages, increased maintenance cost, and old equipment. The blame must be shared by all the major players. Despite the increased missions and roles that our troops are enduring, we have been undertaking a post-Cold War demobilization. Our current dilemma is a modernization crisis. As the budge has been flat for the last few years matched by increased OPTEMPO and faced with making down payments on the next generation weapons, the Pentagon chose to raid O&M and training budgets to make ends meet. Our dilemma is two parted there is a budgetary problem and there is a strategy problem.
Defense spending has been cut by roughly 30% since 1989 and is now at about 2.5 percent of GDP. Recently, former SECDEF James Schlesinger has written that (paraphrase) there is no way the U.S. can sustain overtime the forces that the Clinton Administration states to be essential on 3 percent GDP that's not a matter of analysis; its simple arithmetic. Mr. Schlesinger then proposes to spend 4 percent GDP on Defense, befitting of a ''sole superpower.'' In today's economy—much larger than it was in the 1980s—2.5 percent of GDP can buy quite a lot. (The US spends more on Defense then the 10 next nations put together.) The President's proposed increase will, according to CCS General Shelton, will go a long way toward meeting our most critical requirements FY00 and beyond.
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That said, we must remember that merely throwing money at the problem is not a cure all. As Dr. Andrew Krepinevich (director of Center for Strategic and Budgetary assessments) has stated ''Sometimes thinking smarter about how you operate is more important than thinking richer.''
Secretary Cohen has continually called for two rounds of base closings. A prospect that has been supported by all the Chiefs. We've been told that we haven't yet fully realized the cost savings from the last rounds of base closures. We are also presented by the services with privatization, competitive outsourcing (A76), reengineering, etc. as tools of downsizing as they attempt to wrest more and more savings from the bloated infrastructure. Last year, the SECDEF began to cut and reorganize the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
a) When will we begin to see the fruits of these labors in terms of greater savings and more fiscally responsible management?
b) How much further can you or would you like to cut at your respective infrastructure and how much do you think you can save?
General SHELTON. I believe we are already realizing the fruits of our efforts in terms of greater savings and fiscally responsible management. And, there is still much more that we need to do. For example, we continue to call for the very best business practices, without degrading support for the warfighters, when assessing whether to retain, outsource or privatize functions.
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In this regard, we expect to save $11.2 billion over the next seven years as a result of competing over 229,000 civilian positions between fiscal year 1998 and fiscal year 2005. Additionally, we believe this effort will offer projected annual recurring savings of $3.4 billion beginning in fiscal year 2005
As Secretary Cohen stated in his April 1998 report on base realignment and closure, the analysis indicates we have approximately 23 percent excess base capacity today. When you consider that the Defense budget has declined approximately 36 percent in constant fiscal year 1999 dollars since fiscal year 1985, freeing up additional resources for priority requirements becomes critical. Future BRAC rounds will do that.
We estimate the two future BRAC rounds will generate approximately $3 billion in annual savings at the end of the BRAC implementation period. Up to that point, we will also be generating annual net savings during the implementation period. Assuming BRAC rounds in 2001 and 2005, these net savings will accumulate to approximately $5.9 billion in 2011.
PERSONNEL
Mr. UNDERWOOD. In recent hearings, retirement and pay reform have been identified as keys to easing the near-term problem of readiness. Yet surveys indicate that the pace of operations is the real underlying burden placed on troops and families. How are you all going to address this concern without compromising readiness?
General SHELTON. The pace of operations certainly has significant readiness implications, but inadequate pay and retirement benefits have also been consistently identified in service retention and exit surveys as top dissatisfiers. While steps have been taken within the Joint Community to ease operational strains on units, such as joint exercise reductions, Global Force Management, management of Low Density/High Demand (LD/HD) assets, and a review of long-term commitments in Haiti, Macedonia, Sinai, and the Western Sahara, the Services are in the best position to address efforts they are taking to maintain readiness while coping with the personnel impacts of rising mission demands. Retirement and pay reforms are intended to complement the Services' tempo management efforts by providing a level of compensation commensurate with the increasing sacrifices required of our servicemembers. These initiatives cut across all the Services and support the continued success of a professional volunteer Force.
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STRATEGY
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Many critics have stated that the high pace of operations is a result of the Administrations ''promiscuous use of the military for ill-conceived missions.'' These same critics point to the ''burdensome role'' that the U.S. is being forced to play as the ''global cop on the beat.'' Yet the point that these critics are missing is that for the United States, there is tremendous opportunity to shape and engage thus preventing future conflicts. This requires discipline and creative and sustained global engagement. As recently stated by Admiral T. Joseph Lopez [ret., fmr. Supreme Allied Commander, Southern Europe], ''you have to pay for peace, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper, in terms of both money and lives, then then fighting a war.'' Unfortunately this notion, when matched up against the Budgetary paradigm, is going to force us [Congress], the Administration and the Services to have to make some very tough choices that up to now, we've all been reluctant to do.
The Air Force has the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Navy has Forward from the Sea. The Marine Corps has The 3-Block War Scenario and the Army has Force XXI. When you analyze all these plans and postures, it seems to indicate that the services are describing how they'll meet the emerging challenges of the new security environment of today and tomorrow. Particularly, they address ''asymmetrical threats'' vice ''force on force'' engagements.
In other venues, we have been told that our current 2 MRC strategy is so unlikely that we're forfeiting tomorrow's victory on the predicted future battlefield by building forces based on yesterday's wars. This situation seems so very reticent of the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. Realistically, the services, based on their particular specialty and expertise, are going to have to make a choice to be superior in the classic large engagement or become experts in the emerging world of peacekeeping, guerilla-street combat, counter terrorism and humanitarian endeavors.
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Do you believe it is prudent and cost-efficient to have each branch of the military attempt to master both types of war scenarios that I previously described?
General SHELTON. The individual Services have always had unique roles and missions which contribute to the breadth of the extraordinary overall warfighting capability the US military has been able to attain and demonstrate in the past few decades. Our 2 MTW capability is the bedrock of our military strategy. We are organized, equipped and trained to fight and win our Nation's wars. This core capability must be available to our political decision-makers. We can respond to the other cases you addressed with these forces. The versatility of our Armed Forces is what gives us our unique strength. I expect the Services to continue fine tuning their respective unique capabilities to carry out their roles and missions, based on the changing strategic security environment and potential threats the US is expected to face in the future.
STRATEGY
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would you agree that as long as the Foreign Policy goals and Grand Strategy of the U.S. remains in transition or in flux, the armed services will attempt to ''cover all the bases'' instead of making an all or nothing choice in terms of force structure and capability?
General SHELTON. The Armed Forces are charged by the Constitution to ''provide for the common defence.'' Their fundamental purpose is to fight and win our Nation's wars. However, there is no choice but to be prepared to protect the United States and its citizens from all threats, whatever the current threats may be. I also believe that, as part of the effort to promote peace and stability, US military engagement with other nations is generally more effective than not engaging. Engagement may in fact help to produce an environment in which force is not required to promote or maintain peace and stability.
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Our Armed Forces must be prepared to ''cover all bases'' to carry out its Constitutionally-charged mission to ''provide for the common defence.'' That requirement is inherent in our charter, and we must be able to so execute.
To my knowledge, there is no one in the national security community advocating an ''all or nothing'' approach. Rather the continuing debate is on the appropriate mix of forces required to achieve the military objectives in support of the National Military Strategy, the National Security Strategy of the United States, and ultimately our Constitution.
General REIMER. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
SAVINGS
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Secretary Cohen has continually called for two more rounds of base closings. A prospect that has been supported by all the Chiefs. We've been told that we haven't yet fully realized the cost savings from the last round of base closures. We - our fellow citizens and constituents - are also presented by the services with the privatization, competitive outsourcing (A76), re-engineering, etc., as ''tools of downsizing'' as they attempt to wrest more and more savings from the bloated infrastructure. Last year the Secretary of Defense began to cut and reorganize the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). (A) When will we begin to see the fruits of these labors in terms of greater savings and more fiscally responsible management? (B) How much further can you or would you like to cut at your respective infrastructures and how much do you think you can save?
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General REIMER. We are already seeing benefits from our efforts to gain efficiency in infrastructure management, although it may be some years before the full benefits of some programs are realized. The first four rounds of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) are nearly complete: 102 out of 112 installations are closed and 18 of 27 realignments are complete. Fiscal year 1997 (FY97) was the first year that BRAC savings exceeded implementation costs for the Army. Upon completion, BRAC will attain $953 million per year in savings. By moving out of leased space and onto installations, the Army has attained $17.3 million of annual savings. Current plans to move activities out of leased space will garner $33 million in annual savings by FY03 - halfway to our goal of $70 million annually. The modernization of our central heating plant infrastructure will attain $60 million in annual savings through greater system efficiency by FY08. The Army is also pursuing an aggressive program to demolish excess infrastructure. There are no direct savings from this program, but it has allowed the Army to reduce Real Property Maintenance (RPM) requirements by about $400 million annually. This significantly contributes to reducing the serious gap between required and available RPM funds. The results of our A-76 efforts are just beginning to materialize. By next year, we should complete most of the studies we began in FY97. We plan to complete studies of 73,000 spaces by FY05, with projected savings of $800 million per year.
In April 1998, OSD delivered a report to Congress reaffirming the need for additional BRAC rounds. The result was an estimate of Department of Defense excess of 23 percent overall and an estimate of Army excess of 20 percent to 28 percent. Although a more detailed analysis may result in a lower number, it is clear that the Army has significant excess capacity. Without this detailed analysis, the Army cannot provide specific information on specific excess at this time, but the broad analyses conducted to date clearly support the need for two additional rounds of BRAC.
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STRATEGY
Mr. UNDERWOOD. The Air Force has the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Navy has Forward from the Sea. The Marine Corps has The 3-Block War Scenario and the Army has Force XXI. When you analyze all these plans and postures, it seems to indicate that the services are describing how they'll meet the emerging challenges of the new security environment of today and tomorrow. Particularly, they address ''asymmetrical threats'' vice ''force on force'' engagements.
In other venues, we have been told that our current two Major Regional Conflicts (MRCs) strategy is so unlikely that we are forfeiting tomorrow's victory on the predicted future battlefield by building forces based upon yesterday's wars. This situation seems so very reticent of the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. Realistically, the services, based on their particular specialty and expertise, are going to have to make a choice to be superior in the classic large engagement or become experts in the emerging world of peacekeeping, guerilla-street combat, counter-terrorism and humanitarian endeavors.
Do you believe it is prudent and cost efficient to have each branch of the military attempt to master both types of war scenarios that I previously described?
General REIMER. Yes. I think, based on our current strategic environment, we have no choice but to be prepared for the full range of military operations. In any military operation, we get the best results when we conduct it as a joint force. Each service brings particular strengths to the mission, but the Army is unique because it focuses on the soldier. This focus allows us to maintain the capability of being a full spectrum force. As long as we train and equip our soldiers adequately, our capabilities as a service are easily adaptable to any mission. The Army has the capacity for land force dominance regardless of the mission, environment, threat, or challenges. Within its current end strength and budget, the Army can execute its portion of the National Military Strategy with risk. The Army pursues all parts of this strategy with a balanced effort. Our priority in force structure and training is clearly on fighting and winning two Major Theater Wars (MTWs). If we develop the capabilities for that most stressful mission, we will have the capabilities needed for less stressful missions.
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STRATEGY
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would you agree that as long as the Foreign Policy goals and Grand Strategy of the U.S. remains in transition or in flux, the armed services will attempt to ''cover all the bases'' instead of making an all or nothing choice in terms of force structure and capability?
General REIMER. The Army must have a range of capabilities and a flexible force structure, because future threats are uncertain but likely to be varied. The most recent National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy state that the Army must prepare for this uncertainty. The Army will continue to be able to perform the full spectrum of military operations. While we maintain the force structure that enables us to fight and win two Major Theater Wars, the Army will also continue to use the same force to respond to a full range of military operations from peacetime engagement activities to Smaller-Scale Contingency operations. This ability to respond enables the Army to assist in shaping the international environment, which supports our strategy.
BUDGETARY INFRASTRUCTURE
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Secretary Cohen has continually called for two more rounds of base closing. A prospect that has been supported by all the chiefs. We've been told that we haven't yet fully realized the cost savings from the last rounds of base closures. We - our fellow citizens and constituents - are also presented by the services with privatization, competitive outsourcing (A76), re engineering, etc. as ''tools of downsizing'' as they attempt to wrest more and more savings from the bloated infrastructure. Last year the SECDEF began to cut and reorganize the office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
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When will we begin to see the fruits of these labors in terms of greater savings and more fiscally responsible management?
Admiral JOHNSON. As a result of the four rounds of BRAC reviews, the Department of the Navy ultimately will close or realign 179 Navy and Marine Corps bases, reducing our property inventory by approximately 163,000 acres. The Department's investment in BRAC will result in a $5.6 billion reduction in the Navy's operating budget through the year 2001 and $2.6 billion per year thereafter.
The Navy's strategy has been to reach operational closure quickly, then complete cleanup and dispose of the property in support of local redevelopment efforts. In 1999, 11 additional closures will be added to the 162 closures or realignments already completed. In spite of these accomplishments, reductions in the Navy's infrastructure have not kept pace with reductions in force structure. Additional BRAC rounds are critical to support the Secretary of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review strategy and to achieve the objectives of the Joint Staff's Joint Vision 2010. DOD estimates two additional rounds of BRAC would save the Department $3 billion per year in the long term, of which the Navy share would be approximately one third. We would apply such savings to increase readiness by augmenting operations and maintenance accounts and accelerating modernization and recapitalization.
In terms of other savings initiatives, we are engaged in a number of areas. In late 1997, the Secretary of Defense announced a sweeping program called the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI) to reform the business side of DoD. There are currently over 45 Defense Reform Initiatives Directives (DRIDS) that include initiatives for competitive sourcing, utility privatization, paperless contracting, and acquisition streamlining. The initiatives are a key part of the Navy's business reform process. For example, DRID 20 is a review of inherently governmental functions and provides an initial step toward increasing outsourcing and privatization. DRID 46 directs paperless contracting by January 2000. Per DRID 49, the services will carry out the privatization of utilities by January 2003.
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Following the lead of the Secretary of Defense in the DRI program, the Navy initiated a Revolution in Business Affairs (RBA) process early in 1998. Our people have already taken extraordinary measures to save resources by reducing force structure and infrastructure, and we have more than 350 initiatives underway to improve our existing business systems. For example, by the end of FY98 the Navy had:
reduced major defense acquisition program cycle time by 25%,
increased micro-purchases by purchase card to 90% of transactions,
reduced toxic material releases by 20%,
increased total asset visibility to 90% while reducing logistics response time by 50%,
streamlined acquisition processes, reducing the acquisition-related workforce by 15%
Mr. UNDERWOOD. How much further can you or would you like to cut at your respective infrastructures and how much do you think you can save?
Admiral JOHNSON. As a result of BRAC I through IV, DoN will have reduced the plant replacement value of shore infrastructure by 17%. This is in contrast to the 30% reduction in military end strength and 45% reduction in ships over the same period.
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The Navy supports SECDEF's request for two more BRAC rounds. DoD estimates two more BRAC rounds in FY 2001 and FY 2005 would save $3 billion a year in the long term, with the Navy's portion being about 1/3 of those amounts.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Personnel—In recent hearings, retirement and pay reform have been identified as keys to easing the near-term problem of readiness. Yet surveys indicate that the pace of operations is the real underlying burden placed on troops and their families. How are you all going to address this concern without compromising readiness?
Admiral JOHNSON. We recognize that the near-term personnel challenges can not be attributed purely to fiscal concerns. However, adequate compensation is consistently among the top five reasons stated for leaving the Navy. Other factors with obvious impact on a sailor's decision to leave the Navy include: personnel tempo and the accompanying family separation, job satisfaction, and career opportunities.
We are a very busy organization these days, even more so than in the Cold War, and given the current international security environment, we expect this to remain the case for the foreseeable future. Our sailors realize this fact, and most accept a degree of family separation as being an integral part of what they do. That explains why morale is high among our deployed forces. They recognize the important contribution they are making to the peace and stability of the world.
It is in the non-deployed part of our Sailors' lives that I think we can, and need to, make the biggest improvement. Today, our deployed naval forces maintain a high level of readiness in part by shifting resources from non-deployed forces. Previous declines in funding, coupled with increases in operational tempo, disproportionately impacted manning levels and maintenance backlogs within the Inter-Deployment Training Cycle (IDTC), as well as overall Fleet recapitialization and modernization efforts. The resulting effect is most apparent and acute in non-deployed readiness. The chart below shows the readiness ''bath tub'' effect (readiness versus time) and illustrates the difficulty non-deployed forces experience as they pass through the IDTC. While this chart depicts only carrier air wing readiness, similar trends are seen among non deploying ships and submarines. These are precisely the forces that would have to surge in the event of a major theater war. The deeper the ''bath tub'' becomes, the greater the risk to our ability to respond with combat-ready follow-on forces. Clearly, the slope that IDTC units must climb to attain the necessary levels of readiness by deployment is getting steeper. This accelerated activity greatly affects quality of life and fleet morale. To make up for resource shortfalls, our Sailors work harder and longer to compensate. This extra work prevents Sailors from spending needed and well-deserved time with their families.
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[The graph can be viewed in the hard copy.]
I believe it is the extra workload and compressed OPTEMPO in the IDTC that frustrates our Sailors the most. They expect to go to sea on deployments. But in between deployments they expect to be able to spend time with their families and enjoy a reasonable quality of life. The situation today in the IDTC is not meeting the mark.
We have taken several steps to try to improve this situation. Last year we introduced an initiative to substantially streamline the numerous inspections and administrative burdens required during the IDTC, thereby reducing demands on Sailors by 25%. But more needs to be done. We need to have the right people trained to fill the right jobs; not just in time for deployment, but far enough ahead of deployment to ease strain on shipmates and maximize training opportunities. We need to have enough spare parts on board our ships to repair equipment without undue delay or resorting to cannibalization. We also need aircraft and ship maintenance programs sufficiently robust to accomplish needed work in a timely fashion. By doing so, we will enhance readiness and improve the quality of life of our sailors.
The topline relief included in the President's FY 2000 budget provides approximately $1.4B for readiness. This increase allows ship maintenance to be funded to the CNO goal of 94% up 2 percent over the FY 1999 budget; funds the Flying Hour program based on actual cost experience and buys out the repairable parts bow wave; funds aircraft depot maintenance to fully support deployed readiness and significantly improves non deployed squadron readiness; fully funds traditional ship steaming days of 50.5 (deployed) /28 (non-deployed) per quarter; and substantially improves our investment in necessary spares. This is a step in the right direction and combined with DoD's proposed pay initiatives will demonstrate to our Sailors that the Navy is committed to providing them the tools to do the job they volunteered to do.
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Mr. UNDERWOOD. Many critics have stated that the high pace of operations is a result of the Administration's ''promiscuous use of the military for ill-conceived missions.'' These same critics point to the ''burdensome role'' that the U.S. is being forced to play as the ''global cop on the beat.'' Yet the point that these critics are missing is that for the United States, there is tremendous opportunity to shape and engage thus preventing future conflicts. This requires discipline and creative and sustained global engagement. As recently stated by retired Admiral T. Joseph Lopez (former SACSOEUR), ''you have to pay for peace, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper, in terms of both money and lives, then fighting a war.'' Unfortunately this notion, when matched up against the budgetary paradigm, is going to force us (Congress), the Administration and the Services to have to make some very tough choices that up to now, we've all been reluctant to do.
The Air Force has the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Navy has Forward From The Sea. The Marine Corps has the 3 Block War Scenario and the Army has Force XXI. When you analyze all these plans and postures, it seems to indicate that the services are describing how they'll meet the emerging challenges of the new security environment of today and tomorrow. Particularly, they address ''asymmetrical threats'' vice ''force on force'' engagements.
In other venues, we've been told that our current 2 MRC strategy is so unlikely that we're forfeiting tomorrow's victory on the predicted future battlefield by building forces based on yesterday's wars. This situation seems so reminescent the 1920s and 1930s. Realistically, the services, based on their particular specialty and expertise, are going to have to make a choice to be superior in the classic large engagement or become experts in the emerging world of peacekeeping, guerilla-street combat, counter-terrorism and humanitarian endeavors.
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Do you believe it is prudent and cost-efficient to have each branch of the military attempt to master both types of war scenarios that I previously described?
Admiral JOHNSON. As much as some may believe that we have to choose between the two, we do not feel that the world's current political-military environment provides us with the luxury of abandoning either approach to future strategic planning. However unlikely the two MRC scenario might seem to some, it is still a very distinct possibility. And as long as it remains so, then each service must equip and train to accomplish that mission.
At the same time there can be no denying the significant threat looming on the horizon in terms of smaller scale contingencies, urban warfare, counter-terrorism, humanitarian operations, etc. This gets to the heart of the ''prepare now'' part of our National Military Strategy. We may not have a solution yet to every potential threat in the coming years but we can endeavor to find ways to address and counter as many as possible before they emerge in reality. We must do this, as surely as we must we retain our capability to overwhelm would be aggressors in any future conventional conflicts.
In short, we are not at a juncture in history where we can mortgage the nation's security by banking on one scenario or the other; we must do both and we must do both very well. In some ways our times do resemble the inter-war period, with one major difference. Many of the military technological and doctrinal advances made during the inter-war years were not validated truly until World War II. But today we do not have the luxury of waiting till the next conflict to ''test'' our defenses. The potential lethality of tomorrow's attacks, be they asymmetrical or conventional, leaves us no choice but to ''prepare now'' by ensuring the qualitative edge in any and every perceived field of battle.
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Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would you agree that as long as the foreign policy goals and grand strategy of the U.S. remains in transition or in flux, the armed services will attempt to ''cover all bases'' instead of making an all or nothing choice in terms of force structure and capability?
Admiral JOHNSON. The first tenet of our National Security Strategy remains ''to enhance our security.'' To reiterate my previous answer, we can not gamble with the nation's security by abandoning the advantages we now possess (over any potential foes) in conventional capability in order to prepare for the ''battlefield of tomorrow.'' Therefore, we are actively harnessing the ongoing revolution in military affairs in order to maintain the most modern, most technologically capable force in the world.
At the same time, however, we have no choice but to ''cover all bases'' because we are talking about the security of the nation. I do not deem it prudent to expose our forces to any vulnerabilities if we can simultaneously ''prepare'' for the future while we shape and respond in the present.
BASE CLOSINGS
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Secretary Cohen has continually called for two more rounds of base closings. A prospect that has been supported by all the Chiefs. We've been told that we haven't yet fully realized the cost savings from the last rounds of base closures. We our fellow citizens and constituents are also presented by the services with privatization, competitive outsourcing (A76), re-engineering, etc. as ''tools of downsizing'' as they attempt to wrest more and more savings from the bloated infrastructure. Last year the SECDEF began to cut and reorganize the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
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A. When will we begin to see the fruits of these labors in terms of greater savings and more fiscally responsible management?
B. How much further can you or would you like to cut at your respective infrastructures and how much do you think you can save?
General RYAN. Air Force has an estimated excess capacity of 10-15%. The optimum cut in infrastructure has not been determined. Any reduction in infrastructure must be preceded by a detailed analysis of Air Force capacity versus requirements. Requirements would be based on National strategy and planned force structure.
Savings is dependent on the number and identity of the installations that would be cut and cannot be estimated until detailed analysis of alternatives is accomplished. SECDEF, in his April 1998 report to Congress on Base Realignment and Closure, estimated two new BRAC rounds, each roughly the size of BRAC 93 or BRAC 95 will generate annual savings of about $3B.
If additional base closure and realignment rounds are authorized, the excess capacity will be determined in accordance with authorizing legislation, DoD guidance, and established criteria.
PACE OF OPERATIONS
Mr. UNDERWOOD. In recent hearings, retirement and pay reform have been identified as keys to easing the near-term problem of readiness. Yet surveys indicate the pace of operations is the real underlying burden placed on troops and their families. How are you all going to address this concern without compromising readiness?
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General RYAN. We are in the process of implementing our Expeditionary Aerospace Force concept which will align the majority of our Air Force into 10 Aerospace Expeditionary Forces that will be employed on a 15 month rotation for 90 days. In addition, we have cut back on inspections, exercises and deployments that were not critical to current taskings. This will bring much needed stability and predictability into the lives of our Airmen and will allow us to more efficiently utilize the Total Force (thus helping reduce PERSTEMPO concerns).
MASTER BOTH TYPES OF WAR SCENARIOS
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do you believe it is prudent and cost efficient to have each branch of the military attempt to master both types of war scenarios that I previously described?
General RYAN. We believe the answer is ''yes,'' given our current National Security Strategy (NSS) and the relatively low level of risk it is willing to accept in international affairs. The numbers speak for themselves. During the Cold War, the United States mounted 10 major military operations. Since 1989, it has staged 28 highly diverse operations throughout the world. This radical increase in TEMPO is directly attributable to a proactive NSS that seeks to ''shape, respond, and prepare.'' It seeks to retain the initiative in international affairs, and thereby prevent crises or confrontations from unraveling into protracted, large scale, and debilitating conflicts. However, dampening problems so they remain manageable requires robust diplomatic, economic, and military capabilities. Thus far, no other government institution has proven as supple and immediately responsive to the NSS as the US military. Because it is able to address a wide spectrum of challenges quickly, we believe that US forces have become a ''default mechanism'' in global risk management.
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On the dual issues of costs and duplication of effort, however, we need to stress two additional points. Costs are an important consideration in fashioning an effective 21st century military force, but we should never confuse costs with value. Each of the four Services may provide specific capabilities that seemingly overlap with each other, but the core expertise of each Service across the spectrum of conflict remains unique. There are air components in the other Services, for example, but we have only one full-dimensional air force that can project global awareness, global reach, and global power in a variety of circumstances--the United States Air Force (USAF). In other words, the USAF complements the other Services more than it duplicates them. It collaborates with them to meet the nation's needs, regardless of the nature of the threat and its relative importance. Finally, the inherent capabilities of aerospace power do not differentiate between asymmetric and force-on-force threats. Our growing technological ability to ensure freedom from attack, freedom of maneuver, and freedom to attack cuts across different levels and types of threats. Therefore, the USAF can either lead or support the Joint Team's effort to address traditional or nontraditional security challenges.
FOREIGN POLICY GOALS
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would you agree that as long as the Foreign Policy goals and Grand Strategy of the U.S. remains in transition or in flux, the armed services will attempt to ''cover all the bases'' instead of making an all or nothing choice in terms of force structure and capability?
General RYAN. Yes. As we suggested earlier, the armed services would be irresponsible to do otherwise. A proactive foreign policy (i.e., a policy that creates environments rather than merely responds to them) requires diplomatic, economic, and military tools that are flexible, potent, and balanced. Binary choices would only limit our options in a fluid international environment.
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Mr. UNDERWOOD. Secretary Cohen has continually called for two more rounds of base closings, a prospect that has been supported by all the Chiefs. We've been told that we haven't yet fully realized the cost savings from the last rounds of base closures. We -- our fellow citizens and constituents -- are also presented by the services with privatization, competitive outsourcing (A76), re-engineering, etc. as ''tools of downsizing'' as they attempt to wrest more and more savings from the bloated infrastructure. Last year the SECDEF began to cut and reorganize the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). (A) When will we begin to see the fruits of these labors in terms of greater savings and more fiscally responsible management? (B) How much further can you or would you like to cut at your respective infrastructures and how much do you think you can save?
General KRULAK. A. Regarding A-76: The Marine Corps expects to realize savings two years after an A-76 study is initiated. We are in the process of initiating our first studies this year and expect savings in two years, or around the third quarter FY01.
Regarding Re-engineering: The Marine Corps is relying on business process re-engineering to compliment A-76. For the short term, we are relying on re-engineering to fully subsidize savings not realized from a slip in our A-76 program. Re-engineering savings are more immediate. They rely on business analysis rather than A-76. We expect about a one-year period to realize re-engineering savings.
Regarding Utilities Privatization: The Marine Corps is studying 135 utility systems on 15 bases throughout the Marine Corps. These studies, with Naval Facilities Engineer Command as our agent, will be completed by September 2000. Contracts for systems that can be privatized are expected to be in place no later than September 2003.
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Regarding Housing Privatization: The Marine Corps has identified approximately 8,000 housing units at 9 bases for conversion or construction for public/private venture (PPV). Individual PPV efforts will phase in over the next three years.
Regarding Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC): The Marine Corps is part of the larger Department of Navy realignment and closure plan. DoN expects to save $5.8 billion by 2001 with continued annual savings thereafter.
B. The Marine Corps supports the DOD call for additional rounds of BRAC. BRAC is sorely needed by the Department of the Navy to cut unnecessary overhead. However, the Marine Corps does not have clear indications that additional rounds of BRAC will identify any significant Marine Corps specific base realignments and closure. The direct benefit to the Corps on this particular issue may not be great but the indirect benefits clearly put us in a position to support an additional round of BRAC.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Personnel: In recent hearings, retirement and pay reform have been identified as keys to easing the near-term problem of readiness. Yet surveys indicate that the pace of operations is the real underlying burden placed on troops and their families. How are you all going to address this concern without compromising readiness?
General KRULAK. While we do not suggest that the pay and retirement reforms proposed in the President's Budget are a panacea for readiness concerns, we believe that a better pay and compensation system will persuade the best possible personnel to stay in the Marine Corps. Pay and benefits are always a chief concern, as are the pace of operations and time away from families. No single factor exists that can be ''fixed'' that will alleviate all of our Marines' concerns. Still, pay and retirement provisions are fundamental to all stay/leave decisions. While pay and retirement increases do not directly impact operational tempo or time away from families, a connection is still present. For example, we are coping with aviator shortages by assigning many of our aviators to cockpit assignments only. While this keeps our readiness at acceptable levels, these Marine officers are missing out on valuable and necessary non-cockpit assignments. Naturally, the pilots remaining in cockpit assignments for unusually long periods of time will experience more time away from families. If we were able to retain more aviators, they would be able to assume normal non-cockpit assignments which would improve their quality of life from the family separation perspective.
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We address a Marine Corps unit's pace of operations through the effective scheduling of deployments. Our standard unit deployment cycle calls for a 6-month deployment with a turnaround ratio of at least 2:1 (twelve months back). We also depend upon our commanders to assign individual Marines to deploying detachments in an equitable manner to ensure no individual is over-deployed. However, as in the previous example, shortages of Marines with critical skills can result in over-deployment. Known requirements for deployments and joint and other exercises will continue to cause Marines to spend a great deal of time away from home. However, we will be able to effectively manage this constant tempo by continuing to use our time-tested rotational deployment scheme. As long as most of the contingencies that the Marine Corps responds to are absorbed by our forward deployed forces, our pace of operations and subsequent time away from family should remain reasonable.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Strategy: Many critics have stated that the high pace of operations is a result of the Administrations ''promiscuous use of the military for ill-conceived missions.'' These same critics point to the ''burdensome role'' that the U.S. is being forced to play as the ''global cop on the beat.'' Yet the point that these critics are missing is that for the United States, there is tremendous opportunity to shape and engage thus preventing future conflicts. This requires discipline and creative and sustained global engagement. As recently stated by Admiral T. Joseph Lopez [ret., fmr. SACSOEUR], ''you have to pay for peace, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper, in terms of both money and lives, than fighting a war.'' Unfortunately this notion, when matched up against the budgetary paradigm, is going to force us [Congress], the Administration and the Services to have to make some very tough choices that up to now, we've all been reluctant to do.
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The Air Force has the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Navy has Forward from the Sea. The Marine Corps has The 3-Block War Scenario and the Army has Force XXI. When you analyze all these plans and postures, it seems to indicate that the services are describing how they'll meet the emerging challenges of the new security environment of today and tomorrow. Particularly, they address ''asymmetrical threats'' vice ''force on force'' engagements.
In other venues, we've been told that our current 2 MRC strategy is so unlikely that we're forfeiting tomorrow's victory on the predicted future battlefield by building forces based on yesterday's wars. This situation seems so very reticent of the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. Realistically, the services, based on their particular specialty and expertise, are going to have to make a choice to be superior in the classic large engagement or become experts in the emerging world of peacekeeping, guerrilla-street combat, counter-terrorism and humanitarian endeavors.
Do you believe it is prudent and cost-efficient to have each branch of the military attempt to master both types of war scenarios that I previously described?
General KRULAK. First, I would point out that Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS), not the 3 Block War, is the Marine Corps capstone operational warfighting concept. It is applicable across the range of military operations, from MTWs to SSCs. OMFTS describes a new form of littoral power projection in which Marines apply the tenets of maneuver warfare in the context of naval operations - using the sea as maneuver space and a protected base from which to support operations ashore. The 3 Block War is a tactical vision of the future battlefield.
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Across the spectrum of warfare, Marines are likely going to simultaneously fight, keep warring factions apart and assist with humanitarian relief operations. These three activities will be conducted by the same Marines during the same day within close proximity to each other. The 3 Block War is the national security environment in which Marines currently operate and will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. This gets at the crux of your question. We are currently trained, equipped and prepared to engage across the spectrum of conflict. By preparing for the high end of conflict we must necessarily include the requirements for the low end. The two have become intertwined. The last point on this subject which is important to note is the flexible military options offered to the National Command Authority by Naval Expeditionary Forces. The building block nature of these forces, their multi-mission capabilities and their ability to operate absent host nation support or permission, make them powerful instrument of national power for any type of war scenario.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Strategy: Many critics have stated that the high pace of operations is a result of the Administrations ''promiscuous use of the military for ill-conceived missions.'' These same critics point to the ''burdensome role'' that the U.S. is being forced to play as the ''global cop on the beat.'' Yet the point that these critics are missing is that for the United States, there is tremendous opportunity to shape and engage thus preventing future conflicts. This requires discipline and creative and sustained global engagement. As recently stated by Admiral T. Joseph Lopez [ret., fmr. SACSOEUR], ''you have to pay for peace, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper, in terms of both money and lives, than fighting a war.'' Unfortunately this notion, when matched up against the Budgetary paradigm, is going to force us [Congress], the Administration and the Services to have to make some very tough choices that up to now, we've all been reluctant to do.
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The Air Force has the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Navy has forward from the Sea. The Marine Corps has the 3-Block War Scenario and the Army has Force XXI. When you analyze all these plans and postures, it seems to indicate that the services are describing how they'll meet the emerging challenges of the new security environment of today and tomorrow. Particularly, they address ''asymmetrical threats'' vice ''force on force'' engagements.
In other venues, we've been told that our current 2 MRC strategy is so unlikely that we're forfeiting tomorrow's victory on the predicted future battlefield by building forces based on yesterday's wars. This situation seems so very reticent of the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. Realistically, the services, based on their particular specialty and expertise, are going to have to make a choice to be superior in the classic large engagement or become experts in the emerging world of peacekeeping, guerilla-street combat, counter-terrorism and humanitarian endeavors.
Would you agree that as long as the Foreign Policy goals and Grand Strategy of the U.S. remains in transition or in flux, the armed services will attempt to ''cover all the bases'' instead of making an all or nothing choice in terms of force structure and capability?
General KRULAK. I do not believe that it is prudent to take an all or nothing approach to force structure or capability for the Marine Corps. Our 3 block war tactical vision of the future battlefield demands that we be capable of engaging across the spectrum of warfare. Marines are likely going to simultaneously fight, keep warring factions apart and assist with humanitarian relief operations. These three activities will be conducted by the same Marines during the same day within close proximity to each other. The 3 block war is the national security environment in which Marines currently operate and will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. This gets at the crux of your question. We are currently trained, equipped and prepared to engage across the spectrum of conflict. By preparing for the high end of conflict we must necessarily include the requirements for the low end. The two have become intertwined.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BARTLETT
Mr. BARTLETT. What would this do to your bases that rely largely on domestic infrastructure? And second, how much of your fighting capability would remain if this was the first use of a sophisticated enemy of a nuclear weapon? Because of its asymmetric nature, it would be his first use.
I understand that you are waiving the EMP hardening on most new weapons systems. I have a major concern. We don't need them to fight Saddam Hussein. They are great, and we have less casualties using them, but we could beat him with World War II fighting systems, because that is where he is. Any sophisticated enemy is certainly going to do an EMP laydown, and if our new weapons systems are not EMP-hardened, he is going to deny us their use. And then my question is why in the heck would we build them in the first place if, when we really need them, we are not going to have them?
General SHELTON. The OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) estimated the cost of the original Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) Design & Development (D&D) Phase at $5.3 billion. The United States (U.S.) share for this effort, by international agreement, equaled 55 percent of the total D&D cost plus $400 million of U.S. only costs for a total U.S. cost of $3.3 billion. Across the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP), Fiscal Year 2000 through Fiscal Year 2005, the cost to the U.S. would have been $2.4 billion. However, given the competing priorities for Ballistic Missile Defense resources, the Department was unable to fund the current MEADS program.
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Recognizing the need for maneuver force protection, the Department added $150 million for a MEADS effort to focus on initial development of technologies needed for a ground-based Theater Missile Defense (TBM) system to protect maneuver forces. This three-year effort permits the exploration of less costly program options by leveraging the ongoing development efforts of a variety of programs such as PAC III, while conserving resources for higher priority TMD systems. This approach focuses on developing a mobile 360-degree fire control radar, a mobile launcher, and support for integration. We have discussed this effort with our German and Italian allies and requested their support and participation. With their participation, we expect a financial contribution that would provide more robust concept exploration. Results from this effort could be applied to a phased integration of MEADS capabilities into existing programs (e.g., Patriot) or further development of a subsequent effort. Costs, timetables and acquisition strategy for follow-on efforts, if warranted, are unknown at this time and depend on the results of the proposed three-year effort.
General RYAN. There is no doubt that an attack like the one you describe will have a significant impact on some military systems, and many civilian systems in particular. Depending upon the particular base under discussion, many base systems would experience some effect from an EMP attack. Critical C3 systems will survive and operate after the attack. For individual systems and pieces of equipment, EMP survivability is highly variable. Some equipment has an off-the shelf hardness, which may be variable from piece to piece. If an attack warning were provided, equipment survival could be significantly increased by shutting it down in advance. If commercial power sources are disabled, base systems which depend on commercial power will feel the impact.
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The USAF considers the EMP threat real and has for years planned to survive and operate in a nuclear environment, and we still do. . Autumn 1998, you asked when we last conducted an assessment of how much of our fighting capability would remain after an EMP laydown (National Security Committee, Military Readiness Subcommittee, Hearing on Military Readiness, Sept 25, 1998, Question Number (HN-21-023)). The answer we provided then still applies: ''The Air Force has not conducted an assessment of the type that you describe. During the Cold War EMP survivability assessments were made on a system-by-system basis depending upon the mission of the system and the anticipated threat. After procurement of a nuclear survivable system, its survivability features, especially those providing EMP survivability, were regularly maintained and tested. Thus force-wide assessments were not necessary.'' Even though we have not conducted a force-wide assessment, the Air Force is confident the continued application of existing standards will allow us to continue to fight.
Mr. BARTLETT. Why in the heck would we build them (weapons systems) in the first place if when we really need them, we are not going to have them (due to EMP)?
General SHELTON. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]
General RYAN. The Air Force has invested and continues to invest in hardening our weapons systems, aircraft, shelters, C3, space assets such as MILSTAR, and strategic assets, such as ICBM Launch Control Centers, against the threat of EMP. The Air Force attempts to acquire equipment that will survive and operate in probable threat environments, so the USAF acquisition process includes an in-depth study of threats and threat effects. Such studies are prepared to support the Operational Requirements Document. If the Major Command, which writes the Mission Needs Statement, concludes that operation in EMP environments is likely, then the system will be designed to be EMP survivable. We then apply Military Standard 2169 (A & B) for EMP, which remains in effect. If a system is unlikely to operate in an EMP environment, as good stewards of the taxpayers money, it is less costly if we don't have to build in EMP hardening.
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In addition, our strategic weapon systems, the B-1B and the B-2 bombers, as well as ICBMs, were built with EMP hardening. The B-52 has been modified with EMP hardening after it was originally produced. The F-15, F-16, and F-22 have no requirement for EMP hardening. However, tests for the F-16 showed favorable EMP hardness. The draft for the Joint Initial Requirements Document III (25 Aug 98) for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) states that minimizing vulnerability to nuclear EMP is a ''desired objective'' but not a requirement.
General KRULAK. The Marine Corps is focused on buying Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) technology to satisfy our Information Technology (IT) requirements. COTS procurements are fast, cheap, interoperable, maintainable and sustainable. IT equipment that is not COTS is very expensive, not always interoperable, requires long delays in procurement and is usually difficult to maintain. For the most part, COTS equipment is not hardened against EMP. If we could afford the cost of purchasing EMP equipment, the number of vendors that provide that capability is so limited that we would not be afforded adequate competition. The other aspect of protecting against EMP is hardening facilities. Again, this is extremely expensive and only protects our base enclaves. Almost all of our garrison communications use commercial solutions. The commercial carriers do not have all their communicaion nodes in hardened facilities and therefore are exposed to an EMP threat.
We do not have cost estimates on the difference in cost for EMP hardened equipment or the cost to build an EMP hardened facility. Impact on an EMP-type attack on out IT infrastructure would be significant at all garrison bases, posts and stations.
General REIMER. In regard to your question about the cost to continue the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), it will cost $1.9 billion in research, development, test, and evaluation and $96 million in procurement during fiscal years 2000-2005. During fiscal years 2006-2014, the cost is $8.7 billion in procurement to meet a first unit equipped date of fiscal year 2007 and to deliver a defense capability of six, three battery MEADS battalions.
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You also raised several questions about the impact of a nuclear burst's electromagnetic pulse (EMP) on infrastructure and our warfighting capability. EMP field strengths generated by a nuclear burst depend upon many variables, including yield, weapon design, height of burst, distance from the burst, etc. Unhardened or unshielded communications, computers, and electronics located in the continental United States (CONUS) and outside the continental United States (OCONUS) bases could be very susceptible. Systems tied to domestic infrastructure could become inoperable due to the failure of critical links. From testing, we know that unhardened computers and a ''system'' consisting of computers, printers, routers, and other electronics can be permanently damaged, because EMP can enter the ''system'' via antennas, cabling, or other ''ports of entry'' and damage the internal components. CONUS and OCONUS bases could also be susceptible to the EMP threat because of the use of commercial power grids and activities being conducted in facilities that are not ''shielded.'' Department of Defense and Army regulations require mission-essential equipment to be survivable to the EMP threat level anticipated. The Army specifies EMP mission-criticality and essentiality requirements in Operational Requirement Documents and establishes and implements criteria for the acquisition community to meet, including the materiel developers and test experts. The Army is very concerned about the EMP threat and has found from experience that an expenditure of less than 1 percent of acquisition costs for mission essential/critical equipment for EMP protection will ensure survivability. There have been attempts to lower, or do away with, EMP criteria by pushing the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and non-developmental items without system level testing. The Army uses COTS extensively, but tests the ''system'' as closely as possible within the configuration anticipated. The less-than-1 percent of acquisition costs for survivability is a sound insurance policy against the proliferation threat of nuclear weapons and the possible catastrophic consequences of a high-altitude EMP (HEMP) event.
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In terms of warfighting capabilities, it is difficult to predict the exact HEMP effects on battle operating tempo, but the Army takes this phenomena seriously in its acquisition process, including testing to replicate as nearly as possible what would be encountered on the battlefield. We are not waiving the EMP hardening requirement on new weapons systems. In fact, the Capstone Requirements Document for the Army Battle Command System for the Digitized Force is currently being staffed within Training and Doctrine Command with Combined Arms Center to ensure that EMP survivability is required for mission essential equipment. Extant mission essential/critical equipment, for the most part, meets EMP hardening standards.
Overall, the Army has a good EMP survivability program in place, and concerns about the EMP threat are being adequately addressed within the Army.
Mr. BARTLETT. They said here that for training pilots, nobody, not a single pilot, took the bonus in 1997 and 1998. Are they in error, or is that correct?
General RYAN. It is true that none of twelve bonus-eligible trainer pilots took the bonus in FY97, and in FY98 only one of 10 bonus-eligible trainer pilots accepted a long term commitment. However, they only represent approximately 1% of the total number of bonus eligible pilots from their respective year groups. When I say trainer pilots, I refer to that small group of pilots who have flown at least two consecutive tours in trainer aircraft and not qualified in a major weapon system such as a fighter, bomber, or airlift aircraft. Furthermore, many of our pilots who opt to fly training aircraft do so with the intention of serving out their commitment and departing the AF to pursue career opportunities in the private sector.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SNYDER
Mr. SNYDER. Admiral, you were talking about your needs in recruitment. I know there was an effort made to have the arsenal ship a year or two ago, and it was unsuccessful. I gather that part of the effort behind that was to cut down the number of sailors you have to have on board ship. What do you see happening in the future in terms of trying to get down to personnel needs by eliminating jobs on carriers and other ships?
AIRCRAFT CARRIER MANPOWER REDUCTIONS
Admiral JOHNSON. The Aircraft Carrier programs are exploring many ways to reduce manpower.
IN-SERVICE CARRIERS
The Smart Carrier initiative goal is a 15% billet reduction with increased situational awareness, readiness, quality of life, and safety. We anticipate accomplishing this by first demonstrating that significant improvements to workload are possible through re-engineering of shipboard processes, policies, and procedures. Concurrently, Smart Carrier will apply information sensing, processing, distribution, and display technology - such as a fiber optic local area network (LAN), condition assessment systems, damage control management systems, and wireless voice communications. Additionally, we will use automation and control such as an integrated bridge system, remote sensors and actuators, and machinery control system; personnel support such as a cashless ship and smart cards; and we will reduce maintenance and preservation workload using new maintenance techniques and applying new compounds and materials aboard ship.
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CVN 77
The goal for CVN 77 is a total billet reduction of 15 to 20%, through new combat systems, propulsion plant and Hull Mechanical and Electrical (HM&E) modifications plus the appropriate Smart Carrier initiatives.
CVNX CLASS
CVNX 1 will capitalize on the CVN77 changes and increase the billet reduction goal to 20-30% (cumulative) through a new propulsion plant and electrical system, electrical auxiliaries, Electromagnetic Aircraft Launching System, and further HM&E modifications. CVNX 2 will build on CVNX 1 changes to achieve a cumulative 30-50% billet reduction through significant improvements to the hull design and arrangements for more efficient functionality, redistribution of systems. a state of the art flight deck, all electric ship systems, and Electromagnetic Aircraft Recovery System.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MCKEON
$3.3 MILLION CUT PLANT 42
Mr. MCKEON. As you know, last fall Congress responded to the Department of Defense's requests for additional money by enacting legislation to address such needs as base operations and maintenance, procurement, and intelligence programs to name a few. However, a recent issue came to my attention when I learned that Air Force Plant 42 in my district (Palmdale, Ca) was facing a cut of $3.3 million in its operations and maintenance funding in this fiscal year. If implemented, this devastating cut will impact runway operations, base security, and fire and rescue operations among other things.
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I was not sure how this could be possible after Congress increased funding, and after looking into the matter it seems as though the Air Force may be cutting money from Plant 42 and other installations in order to cover cuts made by Congress in other areas of the defense budget. I sincerely hope that this is not the case and would ask that you look into this matter and report back to our committee.
General RYAN. The $3.3 million reduction reported in the local media is incorrect. The actual FY99 Congressional reduction was $2.7 million. It was fully restored in Feb 99. The FY 1999 requirements for plant 42 are fully funded.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. RYUN
RETENTION AND MODERNIZATION
Mr. RYUN. Are your Service's priorities for Retention and Modernization balanced? Is the retention of your skilled personnel, who will be needed to operate more modern equipment, being sacrificed for a higher level modernization?
General SHELTON. The proposed Fiscal Year 2000 program represents a well balanced Retention and Modernization program. The Chiefs and I have repeatedly stated that America's military strength rests on a foundation of quality people, ready forces, and an effective modernization program. However, while each of these elements is absolutely essential, one must come first - people. That's why our first priority is for the personnel compensation package of Full Employment Cost Index (ECI) pay raise, Redux retirement system repeal, and pay table reform. In addition, we have provided additional funding for other personnel retention initiatives such as targeted reenlistment bonuses for our most critical skilled personnel. Our second priority is to recover and preserve our near-term readiness which includes fully funding our Contingency Operations requirements, as well as a wide-variety of spare parts, OPTEMPO relief, and base support requirements. We chose to take some risk in our modernization and facility accounts. By focusing first on people and then on near-term readiness, we believe that some risk in modernization and facility account areas is acceptable since our current warfighting capabilities are maintained, at least in the short term. We will continue to pursue all options, including two additional rounds of base closures and greater efficiencies in DoD business practices, to generate the additional funding needed to address our future modernization and facility recapitalization requirements.
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Mr. RYUN. Of the officers we are selecting for early promotion to Major or Lieutenant Commander, how many are choosing to leave the military for the private sector?
General REIMER. About 10 officers who were selected for early promotion to Major chose to leave the military during each of the last three years. They represent an average of 10.3 percent of those who chose to leave the Army in each of those years.
Mr. RYUN. How does this compare to 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago?
General REIMER. In the late 1980s-early 1990s, about 7 or 8 officers left the military early each year. They represent an average of 9.8 percent of those who chose to leave the Army in each of those years.
END STRENGTH
Mr. RYUN. What are your current troop level numbers as pertaining to the Quadrennial Defense Review's (QDR) troop reductions?
General REIMER. The QDR recommended a 15,000 decrease in Active Component end strength and a reduction of Reserve Component end strength by 45,000. In fiscal year 1999 (FY99) the Active Component expects to reduce its end strength by 4,000 to bring it to the QDR target of 480,000. For the Reserve Components, the first 20,000 reduction has been allocated: 17,000 has been allocated to the Army National Guard and 3,000 to the United States Army Reserve. These reductions are programmed to be completed by FY00 and bring the Army National Guard to an end strength of 350,000 and the Army Reserve to an end strength 205,000. We will continue to work closely with the Guard, Reserve, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense to assess RC force structure and determine how the Army will achieve the balance of the 25,000 reductions in FY01 and FY02.
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READINESS
Mr. RYUN. With a reduction in troops and operation tempo staying steady, or increasing, how will the readiness level of your service be affected?
General REIMER. First, it's important to realize that many factors have an impact on current and future readiness it is a complex equation requiring constant, intense management. That said, your question addresses a central tension in the readiness equation: the breadth of the Army's operational commitments, and the number of soldiers available to meet those commitments. Let me address the two major areas of your question force structure and operating tempo (OPTEMPO) in turn.
In terms of force structure, the Army determined during the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that 480,000 active duty soldiers and 530,000 Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve soldiers was the minimum force required to execute the National Military Strategy (NMS) with acceptable risk. At its most demanding, that strategy calls on the Army to be able to fight and win two nearly simultaneous Major Theater Wars. The active force will complete its QDR reductions by Fiscal Year 2000 (FY00), while the Guard and Reserve will complete their QDR reductions in FY01 and FY02. We have no plans to cut the force any further. If forced to do so, the Army would simply not be able to execute the NMS. That is not to say that supporting the NMS with the QDR determined force structure is easy—it is not. First, we must make full use of the Total Army active, Guard, and Reserve in order to meet our commitments. Second, we must be able to recruit and retain enough quality soldiers to fill the force structure. If we are unable to do so, we risk a return to a ''Hollow Army'' reminiscent of the 1970s. Currently, we predict that we will be about 6,000 soldiers short of our active end strength of 480,000 at the end of this fiscal year, with an even greater shortfall this summer.
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Given those projections, a high OPTEMPO is cause for concern. Today, elements of all 10 of the Army's active divisions (the key units needed to fight Major Theater Wars), are directly involved in supporting current operational commitments in Bosnia, Southwest Asia, Central America, and elsewhere. Significant portions of the Guard and Reserve are also committed. The potential for a long-term Army presence in Kosovo further illustrates the tremendous demands placed on land forces under our current strategy of engagement.
Together, manning difficulties combined with high OPTEMPO pose a very real readiness challenge and demand that we make every effort to adjust for their combined impact. First, the Army must continue to receive timely funding for contingency operations early in the year of execution. Congress' recent support in this area has been crucial to maintaining current readiness - we will need your continued support. Second, the Army must take steps to address its challenges in recruiting and retention. In this regard, Congressional approval of a separate compensation package to increase military pay and reform the military retirement system would send a powerful signal to soldiers and families that we value their service to the Nation. Third, the Army must receive adequate funding in the accounts most critical to current readiness - namely OPTEMPO funding, Base Operations Support, and Real Property Maintenance.
Mr. RYUN. Are your service's priorities for Retention and Modernization balanced? Is the retention of your skilled personnel, who will be needed to operate more modern equipment, being sacrificed for a higher level of modernization?
General REIMER. Our approach to managing readiness always has been to achieve balance, stability, and sufficiency across competing requirements and priorities within constrained resources, while giving commanders the flexibility to conduct daily operations. The President's proposed increases to the budget will contribute to retention of our quality force and will sustain modernization. We have fine tuned our modernization program consistent with Force XXI, but procurement is still underfunded. The fiscal year 2000 (FY00) budget increase should be enough to fix compensation (the triad); fix the noncommissioned officer shortage; maintain an Active Component endstrength of 480,000 soldiers; and increase base operations to reduce migration of funds from training; but we anticipate it will not be enough to fix all of our near-term readiness or modernization shortfalls. Unsatisfied requirements in the FY00 budget will likely include the deferral of infrastructure revitalization until FY03, and the deferral of significant modernization requirements until FY04, to include Soldier Support Systems, replacement of aging equipment, improvement of combat systems, procurement of modernized munitions, Reserve Component modernization and continuing Force XXI digitization.
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Mr. RYUN. Of the Officers we are selecting for early promotion to Major or Lt. Commander, how many are choosing to leave the military for the private sector?
Admiral JOHNSON. The Navy does not maintain this type of data.
Mr. RYUN. How does this compare to 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago?
Admiral JOHNSON. As stated above Navy does not maintain this type of data.
Mr. RYUN. What are your current troop level numbers as pertaining to the QDR's troop reductions?
Admiral JOHNSON. The QDR recommended Navy achieve an active duty end strength level of approximately 369,000 by FY03. Navy's authorized end strength for FY99 is 372,696 and Navy expects to execute to a level of 372,355. The FY00 requested end strength of 371,781 continues the gradual decrease toward the QDR level.
Mr. RYUN. With a reduction in troops and operation tempos staying steady, or increasing, how will the readiness level of your service be affected?
Admiral JOHNSON. We believe the fiscal year 2000 budgeted end strength level of 371,781 will be adequate to man the force structure. However, our ability to attract and retain an all-volunteer force to meet this end strength has become very challenging. The continuing strength of the U.S. economy combined with the application of too few resources too late in the year caused us to miss our fiscal year 1998 recruiting goal by 6,892 recruits putting us below the fiscal year 1998 Congressionally mandated end strength floor by 4,556 Sailors.
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The strong economy and our natural competition with colleges and universities have made it very difficult to convince young men and women to join the Navy and make it a career. Over the past year, we have become increasingly concerned with declining trends in key personnel indicators. Especially worrisome is the fact that retention rates among our enlisted and officer warfighting communities have fallen below desired levels.
Last March, with the help of Congress, we were able to increase the number of recruiters in the field. We expect this will significantly improve our fiscal year 1999 recruiting efforts. The President's fiscal year 2000 budget provides the funding to build on the fiscal year 1999 recruiting effort and we are optimistic that we will meet our accession goals in 1999 and 2000. Additionally the compensation triad (basic pay increase of 4.4 percent, pay table reform and reform of the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 (Redux)) is an excellent step toward addressing pay gap and compensation concerns that have impacted retention.
Mr. RYUN. Are your service's priorities for Retention and Modernization Balanced? Is the retention of your skilled personnel, who will be needed to operate more modern equipment, being sacrificed for a higher level of modernization?
Admiral JOHNSON. Our Naval forces are combat ready today largely due to the dedication and motivation of our people - our Sailors. Attracting, developing and retaining quality people are vital to our continued success and are among the Department's biggest challenges. It is with this in mind that we submitted a budget which places a premium on recruiting, retaining and training the best people our nation has to offer. Taking proper care of our Sailors is my number one near-term priority and I believe the budget will reflect this.
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Based on my meeting with the Comander-in-Chief, his public statement regarding the FY00 Defense Budget, and the planning guidance received from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, I expect the FY00 Budget will take significant steps in meeting our most critical needs and begin to address our modernization and recapitalization issues. As I have testified, the Navy needs an increase of $6B per year across the FYDP above PB99 levels, in addition to pay and retirement increases, to fully meet our operational, modernization and recapitalization requirements.
EARLY PROMOTION
Mr. RYUN. Of the Officers we are selecting for early promotion to Major to Lt Commander, how many are choosing to leave the military for the private sector?
General RYAN. As of 19 February 1999, no Air Force officers selected for early promotion to major during 1996 and 1997 have chosen to leave the military for the private sector prior to retirement.
Mr. RYUN. How does this compare to 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago?
General RYAN. The percentage of personnel selected for early promotion to major who left the military prior to retirement remains steady, though the small numbers of selectees and separations can cause the rates to fluctuate greatly from one year to the next.
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[The graph can be viewed in the hard copy.]
CURRENT TROOP LEVEL
Mr. RYUN. What are your current troop level numbers as pertaining to the QDR's troop reductions?
General RYAN. The QDR troop numbers for FY03 (Active: 339,000 military and 145,000 civilians) assumed a specific set of programmed actions would occur after the QDR was developed. In reality, these programmatic actions were not achievable due to the political climate, real-world taskings and facts of life. In addition, the Air Force has since been directed to reinstate or continue missions driving significant adds to the projected end strength. For example, FY99 actions drove an increase of 2,476 and FY00 mandates another 2,454. As mission and program content have changed, we have had to adjust end strength linked to these changes accordingly, driving a number somewhat higher than the QDR target. The FY00 PB reflects our FY00 active strength as 360,887 military and 160,712 civilians. Significant reductions (approximately 10,000 military and 10,000 civilian) are presently projected through FY05, primarily driven by potential outcome of competitive sourcing, privatization, and reengineering initiatives along with planned changes in program content. Air Force planned troop strengths must continue to be derived from a requirements-based methodology linking manpower levels to program content required to meet national military strategy. The Air Force does not size the force to floors or artificial end strength levels—we work towards the capability to perform today's missions and to meet tomorrow's challenges.
REDUCTION IN TROOPS AND OPERATIONS TEMPOS
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Mr. RYUN. With a reduction in troops and operation tempos staying steady, or increasing, how will the readiness level of your service be affected?
General RYAN. Today 95,000 airman are stationed or deployed overseas protecting the nation's interests. They are doing all that we ask of them, but I have to tell you that their readiness is very fragile, and the indicators are not good as of March 1999. We have experienced a 17 percent degradation in readiness rates of our major operational units since 1996. With a progressively aging fleet of aircraft and underfunding in readiness accounts our people are working harder and harder to cope with their vital missions. We need to fund the required spares. We need to rehabilitate our older but useful equipment and replace the systems that are approaching the end of their operational life. At the same time, we must continue to provide our people with the equipment and training to do the dangerous missions we ask them to do.
We are working to introduce greater predictability and stability into the lives of most of our deployable people through the inauguration of our Expeditionary Aerospace Forces concept. This fresh look at how we operate will enable us to properly configure, package to deploy, and train to task in order to provide ready forces to meet TEMPO demands. We are hopeful this, coupled with our proposals for increased compensation in the form of pay and retirement benefits, will reverse the declines we are experiencing in recruiting and retaining our highly qualified Airmen. A further reduction in manpower with an increase in TEMPO would negate any progress we've made and would only serve to accelerate the readiness decline.
RETENTION AND MODERNIZATION BALANCED
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Mr. RYUN. Are your service's priorities for Retention and Modernization balanced? Is the retention of your skilled personnel, who will be needed to operate more modern equipment, being sacrificed for a higher level of modernization? ''The concerns about current readiness were not unexpected. They resulted from our deliberate effort to shift resources from current readiness into modernizing the force.'' General Dennis Reimer, Army Chief of Staff, from January 5, 199 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
General RYAN. The FY00 PB submission makes every effort to optimize Air Force priorities, including the balance between people (including retention), readiness and modernization. Our Air Force corporate decision making structure is designed to make tough choices to balance military strategy requirements with the available resources (dollars, manpower, and etc). People are certainly the key component—but among several others we must balance. We are convinced that resolving our pay concerns (triad) would help us take better care of our people, drive higher retention and thus, help us properly man the force. Still, these pay initiatives must be balanced with total mission requirements to include the rest of the readiness picture, along with improving other critical quality of life issues such as housing. We must modernize our force (a good deal of our aircraft are older than those who fly and maintain them), take care of our people, and yet also ensure we are trained and ready to perform present missions. Flying hours, spares, munitions, fuel, training, and related ingredients are ''must haves'' for our talented force to fight and win today and tomorrow: the essence of readiness is a complex equation. In addition to supporting adequate defense funding, Congressional endorsement of a new round of BRAC and related infrastructure savings would provide the dollars to meet our top priorities, including pay.
Mr. RYUN. Of the Officers we are selecting for early promotion to Major or Lt. Commander, how many are choosing to leave the military for the private sector? How does this compare to 5, 1O, 15, or 20 years ago?
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General KRULAK. Since 1991, the earliest year information is available, only two officers have been selected for early promotion to Major. One is currently on active duty and the other retired from active service in 1994.
Mr. RYUN. What are your current troop level numbers as pertaining to the QDR's troop reductions?
General KRULAK. The QDR recommended that the Marine Corps reduce its active duty force by 1,800 Marines. This cut began in FY 1998 (1,200) and is to be completed in FY 1999 (600). The active duty planned end strength for FY 1998 was 172,987. FY 1998 ended with 173,142 Marines on active duty.
The Marine Reserve reduction recommended by the QDR was 4,200. As a result of eliminating more Active Reserve than drilling Reserve (1 :4 ratio) it was determined a 3,000 reduction would satisfy the QDR requirement. Reserve draw downs began in FY98 (1,132) and 1,868 will be effected FY99 through FY03. Reserve end strength for FY 1998 was 40,842; 13 Marines below the planned end strength of 40,855.
Mr. RYUN. With a reduction in troops and operation tempos staying steady, or increasing, how will the readiness level of your service be affected?
General KRULAK. The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) confirmed that the world in which we now live requires a Marine Corps more than ever. During the Cold War, Marines were called upon to protect our Nation's interests on an average of once every 15 weeks. Since 1990, Marines have responded to this call on average once every five weeks—an increase in taskings by a factor of three. The enduring requirement for a ready force, capable of simultaneous air and ground action and possessing unimpeded access to potential trouble spots around the world, became readily apparent during the QDR. As a result, the Marine Corps force reductions identified in the QDR were relatively modest. The Marine Corps made a decision not to reduce '' trigger pullers'' during the downsizing that resulted from the QDR. By not reducing the number of ''trigger pullers,'' we have minimized the impact of DEPTEMPO on our forward-deployed units.
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Known requirements for deployments and joint and other training exercises will continue to cause Marines to spend a great deal of time away from home. However, we will be able to effectively manage this constant tempo by continuing to use our time-tested and effective rotational unit deployment scheduling method. As long as most of the contingencies that the Marine Corps responds to are absorbed by our forward deployed forces, our tempo should remain manageable. The impact of our current levels of DEPTEMPO should have minimal impact on our readiness.
The Marine Corps is ready today, despite significant readiness challenges in our mid-term and long-term readiness. As the nation's by-law force in readiness, the Marine Corps is committed to maintaining current operational readiness first, even at the expense of other areas. The price of maintaining this high degree of readiness, given our aging equipment and increasing operational demands, has been paid for out of our modernization, infrastructure, infrastructure maintenance, military construction, and family housing accounts. We are, and have been, forced to make the most of our scarce resources: Marines, money, and material, in order to keep our old equipment and weapon systems ready for combat. The Administration's recent budget increases have lessened the impact to our future readiness, but we still face modernization and other readiness challenges in the years ahead.
Mr. RYUN. Are your service's priorities for Retention and Modernization balanced? Is the retention of your skilled personnel, who will be needed to operate more modern equipment, being sacrificed for a higher level of modernization?
''The concerns about current readiness were not unexpected. They resulted from our deliberate effort to shift resources from current readiness into modernizing the force.'' General Dennis Reimer, Army Chief of Staff, from January 5, 1999 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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General KRULAK. Yes, our priorities are properly balanced within topline constraints. We always have, and will continue to fund near-term readiness as our top priority. Recruitment and retention of the nation's best and brightest young men and women is a near-term readiness issue, and is therefore, funded in our budget request.
This budget request funds the pay and compensation triad of competitive pay increases, pay table reform, and the repeal of the Redux retirement plan. Additionally, the primary tools that allow us to selectively target our critical skill shortages are the Selective Reenlistment Bonus (SRB) program for enlisted personnel and Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP) for our Naval Aviators. In order to ensure that retention is not sacrificed, we have concentrated most of our SRB funding on those Marines reenlisting for the first time. We have also begun to offer SRBs to mid-career and career Marines in order to maintain the appropriate manning levels of our Corps. Similarly, we have used ACP to target officer retention in our aviation community. This program continues to serve us well in the helicopter and Naval Flight Officer communities, however, we are experiencing increased rates of fixed-wing aviator attrition over the past three years and are exploring different alternatives for applying ACP in conjunction with other non-compensation initiatives to better address these negative trends. One thing recently brought to our attention is that aviators and maintenance crews - helicopter and fixed wing - are extremely frustrated over the amount of time our aging planes are spending in maintenance bays. The same holds true for our ground equipment. We are spending more and more in terms of manpower, time, and parts to maintain our aging inventory of aviation platforms and ground equipment, much of which has exceeded its useful life.
As I have stated on numerous occasions, topline constraints over the last seven years have forced us to continue to defer modernization of equipment as well as investment in infrastructure in order to fund near-term readiness. As a result, modernization is now becoming a near-term readiness issue. Topline increases provided in this budget allow us to take the first critical step toward properly funding equipment modernization. However, these problems did not occur overnight; it will take several years of increased funding in order to recover from the cumulative effects of years of underfunding.
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I appreciate your recognition of the importance to properly balance our requirements and request your continued support in order to ensure we remain the ''expeditionary force in readiness'' our Nation requires.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. RILEY
CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION
Mr. RILEY. Before I begin, I would like to thank Chairman Spence for holding this important hearing today, and I would also like to welcome General Shelton and the other service chiefs to the committee.
I have a few brief questions for the panel.
General Shelton and General Reimer, I recently had the opportunity to review the Army's list of unfunded requirements and while I am supportive of the vast majority of them I am very concerned that one item of great importance seems to be absent from the list. Last year at the request of the Secretary of Defense the Chem Demil budget was slashed by $128.5 million.
It is my understanding that as result of this cut the Chem Demil program is significantly underfunded for the current fiscal year. At the Chem Demil site in my own congressional district we are facing a $20 million funding shortfall which will result in six month to one year delay in bringing the Anniston facility on line.
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Why have you not identified the Chem Demil program as one of your unfunded requirements?
Does the Army believe it has an obligation to meet the treaty deadlines that have been established for the destruction chemical weapons? And if so how can that be accomplished without fully funding the program?
Are there any significant changes to the Chem Demil program that members of this committee should be made aware of? In my opinion if the Department of Defense and the Army are still committed to the baseline program it seems foolish to be making cuts in this program at this time. While I have not fully endorsed incineration, I do believe we have a moral obligation to rid areas like Calhoun County as quickly and safely as possible of the deadly threat posed by the continued storage of these weapons of mass destruction. I would appreciate you candid comments on this matter.
General SHELTON. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
General REIMER. The Chemical Demilitarization program is not included in our unfunded requirements, because the FY00 budget already includes the reinstatement of cuts made to the program by Congress in FY99. In FY99, Congress cut $128.5 million from the President's request. The Alabama-Anniston Chemical Demilitarization facility was left unfunded. The Department of Defense (DoD) opposed the reductions, advising Congress of potential and significant delays in the Chemical Demilitarization program and the risk of not meeting certain Chemical Weapons Convention demilitarization deadlines. The Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget restored the reduction for fiscal years 2000-2005. The Army is still assessing options to partially mitigate the impacts of the fiscal year 1999 congressional reductions and is confident that it can achieve the program requirements within existing Chemical Demilitarization resources.
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Mr. RILEY. Does the Army believe it has an obligation to meet the treaty deadlines that have been established for the destruction of chemical weapons? And if so how can that be accomplished without fully funding the program?
General SHELTON. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
General REIMER. Yes, the Army has an obligation to meet the Chemical Weapons Conventions (CWC) deadlines. During the Fiscal Year (FY) 2000/2001 budget building process, the fiscal year 1999 (FY99) Congressional reduction to the program was restored in FY00 and the remainder in FY05; however, impacts from the FY99 reductions will not be fully mitigated by the FY00 funding increase. As such, the Army is assessing all options to mitigate the schedule and cost impacts and to determine if remaining FY99 requirements can be resourced from within the existing CAMD funds. The Army will again request that Congress support the Chemical Demilitarization program and fully fund the program's requirements submitted in the FY00 budget. Additional Congressional cuts to the Chemical Demilitarization program will seriously jeopardize the United States meeting the CWC disposal completion date of April 29, 2007.
Mr. RILEY. Are there any significant changes to the Chemical Demilitarization program that members of this committee should be made aware of ? In my opinion, if the Department of Defense and the Army are still committed to the baseline program, it seems foolish to be making cuts in the program at this time. While I have not fully endorsed incineration, I do believe we have a moral obligation to rid areas like Calhoun County as quickly and safely as possible of the deadly threat posed by the continued storage of these weapons of mass destruction. I would appreciate your candid comments on this matter.
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General SHELTON. The witness did not respond in a timely manner.
General REIMER. There are no significant changes to the baseline incineration technology or the chemical treatment-based approaches for bulk-only agent destruction. The risk to public health and safety associated with continued storage of our obsolete and deteriorating chemical agents and munitions at the eight continental United States and Johnston Atoll storage sites is a major concern. In recognition of this continued risk, the Army's fiscal year 2000 budget and subsequent out-year funding requests are sufficient to safely destroy the chemical stockpile in an environmentally sound manner and meet the Chemical Weapons Conventions completion deadline. This effort is consistent with Congressional direction and the recommendations of the National Research Council to proceed expeditiously with the baseline program. Meanwhile, efforts continue to investigate and demonstrate viable alternative process technologies that are efficient and effective in the safe and environmentally sound destruction of the chemical stockpile.
Mr. RILEY. According to the people that are building the facility—now, again, they may move this back anywhere from 6 months to a year, or their own time line will probably extend that long—what is the possibility now of replacing some of this money? I think it was around $20, $25 million at Anniston last year. What is the possibility of bringing that back on-line so we can go ahead and meet these treaty requirements?
General REIMER. All necessary funds were restored to the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in the fiscal year 2000 President's budget and in subsequent outyears. The replacement of funds will not fully mitigate the schedule impacts for equipping, testing, and operating the facility. Therefore, the Army is evaluating options which will help to mitigate delays to the start of toxic operations and will support compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention deadline of April 2007. For example, some of the schedule impact is being mitigated by concurrently conducting specific aspects of construction and systemization, or prove-out, activities.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KUYKENDALL
Mr. KUYKENDALL. I don't know whether the Marine Corps has so much to say about it, because they usually have to get the ride. But as far as the Navy and the Air Force in particular, sealift capability to lift both material and personnel and airlift the same thing and tankers, because as you deploy from here, the tanker fleet just multiplies as you have to refuel them to get across the place. Any comments on that? And are we adequately covering that? No one commented on that at all and the adequacy of the funding in those areas.
ADEQUACY OF AMPHIBIOUS LIFT AND STRATEGIC SEALIFT CAPABILITY
Admiral JOHNSON. The amphibious lift requirement, established in the 1990 DoN Lift Study and the 1995 Mobility Requirements Study Bottom Up Review Update (MRS BURU), is for the equivalent of three Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEB). Due to fiscal constraints, we have intentionally limited programming goals to providing 2.5 MEB equivalents. We have met the 2.5 MEB goal for all five aspects of amphibious lift in the active force except for vehicle lift, where we.have only 2.1 MEB equivalents.
To address the shortfall in vehicle lift we have established the Amphibious Lift Enhancement Program (ALEP), which maintains nine decommissioned ships in a mobilization status for reactivation in large-scale contingencies. With ALEP we meet the fiscally constrained 2.5 MEB lift requirement. With the delivery of the last of 12 LPD-17 class ships in 2009, we will meet the 2.5 MEB goal for vehicle lift with the active force.
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Strategic sealift requirements are established through the DoD Mobility requirements Study (MRS) process, which looks at all components of strategic lift, including air and sea. The first MRS in 1992 recommended a programmatic strategic sealift solution with a necessary capacity of 14 million square feet, 10 million for surge and 4 million in prepositioned configuration to meet all DoD's sealift requirements for a single Major Theater War (MTW). Surge shipping carries equipment and supplies moving from the United States at the outset of the contingency. Prepositioned sealift shipping is permanently stationed overseas and carries material, which is needed ion the first days of a conflict. The 14 million square feet of strategic sealift capacity was subsequently validated by the 1995 MRS BURU and more recently affirmed by the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
Two acquisition programs were established to meet the sealift programmatic goal, the Large Medium Speed Roll-On/Roll Off (LMSR) program and the acquisition of additional Roll-On, Roll-Off ships (RO-RO's) for the Ready Reserve Force (RRF). With the purchase of additional RO-ROs, upgrade of existing RO ROs, and the conversion and building of LMSRs, we are fulfilling the sealift requirement. All five LMSR conversions have been delivered and the contract for the last of the 14 new construction LMSRs has been awarded. The first LMSR was delivered in 1998 with the last scheduled for delivery in 2001. Of the 19 total LMSR's, eleven are for surge sealift and eight are for prepositioning.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHERWOOD
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DEPOT MAINTENANCE
Mr. SHERWOOD. If you could provide me with your current and projected utilization rates for the Army depots for the next couple of years and your projected backlogs by category. I need to know how much the depot maintenance backlog also could be attributed to paying for Bosnia and other contingencies.
General Reimer. Funding for depot maintenance commodities is at levels in accordance with our Army depot maintenance priorities. The following table presents, in thousand of dollars, the current depot maintenance backlog by depot and commodity and denot maintenance capacity utilization rate by depot, as well as the depot maintenance capacity utilization rate by depot:
[The graph can be viewed in the hard copy.]