SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2004
[H.A.S.C. No. 108–21]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005—H.R. 4200
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
FULL COMMITTEE HEARINGS
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ON
AUTHORIZATION AND OVERSIGHT
HEARINGS HELD
FEBRUARY 4, 2004
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Eighth Congress
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD P. ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
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JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
KEN CALVERT, California
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
ED SCHROCK, Virginia
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
JEFF MILLER, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire
ROB BISHOP, Utah
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
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LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
TIM RYAN, Ohio
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Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
James M. Lariviere, Professional Staff Member
Justin Bernier, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2004
HEARING:
Wednesday, February 4, 2004, Fiscal Year 2005 National Defense Authorization Act—Secretary of Defense; Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Under Secretary of Defence (Comptroller)
APPENDIX:
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2004
FISCAL YEAR 2005, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SECRETARY OF DEFENSE; VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF; UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENCE (COMPTROLLER)
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STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Hunter, Hon. Duncan
Skelton, Hon. Ike
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
FISCAL YEAR 2005, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SECRETARY OF DEFENSE; VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF; UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENCE (COMPTROLLER)
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 4, 2004.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:15 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.
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This afternoon the committee meets to receive testimony on the Department of Defense (DOD) Fiscal Year 2005 budget request. Our witnesses are the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, and General Peter Pace, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gentlemen, thank you for being with us.
I understand you are accompanied by the Honorable Dov Zakheim, Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer, and the Honorable David Chu, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. And thank you for being with us. We hope you have not grown weary of the Rayburn Building yet.
In light of the fact, Mr. Secretary, that you have got a crunch for time, and we have got lots of members with lots of questions, let me just say very briefly and preliminarily that I have seen and looked at the budget. We are obviously still going through it. Other members have.
It appears that you made a sound attempt to balance the urgent needs of the theaters of war with long-term requirements. That is always a difficult task, but I think, at least on first blush, that you made a good job of it. Certainly we are going to want to work our will and oversight with this package, but it is a good package, one of the few budgets that has been presented that is an increase, represents a seven percent increase over last year.
So, having said that, let me simply yield to my partner, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he would like to make, and then we will be happy to turn the floor over to you.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, welcome back. It is good to see you; and I am sure you have already gotten a fill of this room today, as I understand it.
But, General Pace and Mr. Zakheim, thank you; and, Dr. Chu, thank you very much for being with us.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, I just returned from my second trip to Iraq and my first trip to Afghanistan about 48 hours ago. The impression that remains is again one of tremendous pride in our amazing American soldiers. Just amazing. Morale was high, and they are doing so very much every day to bring stability to those places. We just can't thank them enough; and I think, Mr. Secretary, you should know that.
We are facing real dangers now. I am convinced through my being there and talking with so many people, we will not be ready for transfer of the sovereignty by June the 30th. Let us not let our own timetable, actual timetable, determine the future. Rather, we should, in my opinion, Mr. Secretary, turn over the sovereignty when there is a stable and viable government, adopted constitution, and stable, secured, fully restored services.
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If we rush to judgment, rush to progress, I think—and I hope I am dead wrong—I think that there is a likelihood of a civil war among the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the Kurds that could spiral out of control; and I am very concerned about this.
I give you my best thought on this from talking with a lot of folks over there, having met with some of the Governing Counsel. In particular, I had a very interesting conversation with a Kurdish leader, and I don't say what I said lightly, Mr. Secretary.
However, it should help in Iraq by getting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) involved as they are in Afghanistan; actually, more so. The Alliance would diminish the perception that this is primarily an American operation while alleviating the burden on our troops.
Our partners in Europe have an interest in a strong and secure Iraq even more so than we. NATO has certainly helped in Afghanistan around the Kabul area and up in the northeast corner, and they seem to be making progress under the NATO umbrella. And the Taliban and al Qaeda are security challenges, as continues, and I think that we have to continue our efforts in Afghanistan now.
I would like to turn for a moment, if I may, Mr. Chairman, to the President's defense budget request. I applaud the increase it puts toward our national security and the funding, including the pay raise that is included for our troops, but let me spell out a couple concerns, if I may.
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The budget does not account for the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that these have been ongoing for some time. While I recognize it is very difficult to predict precise costs, our track record today must give us some estimate, at least I think, of what we are likely to spend.
Also, the overall budget increases of $26.4 billion is—I applaud it, but I also see that the Army increased only $1.8 billion, although they are carrying a large majority of the mission in Iraq as well as being deployed in 130 countries; and the soldiers and their families I think deserve more of an increase.
In my opinion, the Army as well as other services need additional end strength. I commend General Schoomaker, who testified here a number of days ago; and I commend him for his efforts in undertaking to find the 30,000 additional soldiers. I have to tell you, I disagree with his premise in that demand, in my opinion, is not a temporary spike.
Going back, Mr. Secretary, to the testimony in 1995 in this room by the head of the personnel of the Army, Lieutenant General Stroop, there was a need for end strength, according to his testimony then; and we were just going into the Balkans at that time. We still have, of course, forces in Korea, Germany, and the Balkans; and I think we should take a good hard look at the increase in end strength.
But, Mr. Secretary, I must tell you I really, really am proud of the young folks in uniform, and I know that you are, as well. I talked to any number of them, had lunch with them, had breakfast with them, talked to them on post. I didn't find a complainer. They know their duty, and I have talked to both Active Duty, Guard and some Reserve. You should be very proud of our troops, and I pass that on to you.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the distinguished gentleman.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, are you ready for the next go-around?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DONALD H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, thank you very much for this opportunity to testify on our proposed budget. I would request that the full statement be put in the record.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. I regret that General Myers couldn't be here because of a death in the family and am certainly pleased to have General Pace, Dr. Zakheim, and Dr. Chu. We also have Dr. Steve Cambone, the Under Secretary for Intelligence, here in case there are questions in that area that merit detailed answers.
I first want to commend the men and women in uniform. I know what Congressman Skelton means when he says they are doing a superb job. Indeed, they are. They could not be doing a better job. They are proud of what they are doing, they recognize the importance of it, and they are doing it with great skill and dedication. What they have accomplished since our country was attacked 28 months ago is truly impressive.
Certainly I want to thank the people on this committee who have taken the time to go into Iraq and into Afghanistan and see the troops. It is not a leisurely trip. It is important. They appreciate it. They value it. You are able to come back and know firsthand what is taking place there and help to have the American people have a better understanding of it.
Those folks have been—oh, gosh, in the last—what—28 months have overthrown two terrorist regimes. They have captured or killed 45 of the 55 most wanted in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein and his sons. They have captured or killed close to two-thirds of the senior al Qaeda operatives. They have been disrupting terrorist cells on most continents. We value their service, their sacrifice, and certainly also the sacrifice of their families.
When this administration took office 3 years ago, the President charged us to challenge the status quo and to prepare the Department to help meet the 21st century threats and challenges.
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To meet that charge, we have fashioned a new defense strategy, a new force sizing construct, a new approach to balancing risks. We have issued a new unified command plan, taken steps to attract and retain the needed talent in the Armed Forces, including using targeted pay raises and quality-of-life improvements for the troops and their families. We have instituted more realistic budgeting procedures so that the Department now looks to emergency supplementals for unknown costs of fighting wars, not to sustain readiness. And we have completed the Nuclear Posture Review.
We have transformed the way the Department prepares its war plans. We have adopted a new ''lessons learned'' approach in the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) exercise, and undertaken a comprehensive review of the global force posture. With your help, we are establishing a new National Security Personnel System which we believe will help us better manage the 746,000 civilian employees.
The scope and scale of what has been accomplished in the Department is substantial. Our challenge is to build on these efforts even as we fight the Global War On Terror.
One effect of the Global War On Terror has been a significant increase in operational tempo, as has been mentioned, an increase in the demand on the force. To manage the demand on the force, we have to first be very clear about what the problem is so we can work together to fashion appropriate solutions.
The increased demand on the force we are experiencing today, we hope, is a spike. One can't know of certain knowledge whether it will prove to be a spike, but we believe it is a spike driven by the deployment of some 115,000 troops in Iraq and still more in another increment in Afghanistan.
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For the moment, the increased demand is real, and we have had to take a number of immediate actions. We are increasing the international military participation both in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have accelerated the training of Iraqi security forces, we have gone from zero up to 200,000 strong, and our forces are hunting down those who threaten Iraq's stability and their ability to transition to self-reliance.
Another way to deal with the increased demand of the force is to simply add more people, as some have proposed. Well, we have already done that, a fact that many may not be fully aware of. If you look at the chart to my right, and your left, using the powers granted by Congress we have been increasing the Active Duty force levels by nearly 33,000 above the pre-September 11th authorized end strength. When the President signed the emergency order, it relieved us of the statutory end strength numbers and enabled us to increase to meet the needs. So over this period of time we have been increasing the size of the force levels.
There is some confusion about the phrase ''end strength'' as opposed to ''force levels''. End strength is the statutory number, as the people on the committee know, that we are required to be at or near at the beginning and end of each year. Force levels, we are allowed to fluctuate above and below during the year; and in the case of an emergency, we can fluctuate substantially as we have. Clearly, if the war on terror demands it, we will not hesitate to increase force levels even more using the emergency authorities that you have already provided.
But it should give us pause that even a temporary increase in our force levels was and remains necessary today. Think about it. At this moment we have a pool of 2.6 million men and women, both Active and Reserve. That is to say that 1.4 Active, the 747,000 in the Guard and Reserve, the additional Individual Ready Reserve brings us up to a total pool of about 2.6 million. Yet the deployment of 115,000 troops in Iraq has required us to temporarily increase the size of the force by 33,000. That suggests strongly to me that the real problem may not be the size of the force, per se, but rather the way the force is being managed and the mix of capabilities that are at our disposal; and it suggests that our challenge is considerably more complex than simply adding more troops.
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Pete Schoomaker, the new Chief of Staff of the Army, compares the problem to a barrel of rainwater. When you have a spigot that is near the top and you turn the spigot on, all you can draw is the water at the top. If the spigot is at the bottom, you can draw the entire rain barrel.
Our situation is that you have got two choices if the spigot is too far up. One is to get a bigger rain barrel or to move the spigot down to the bottom where you can have access to all of the water in the rain barrel. In my view, the answer is not a bigger rain barrel. The answer is to move the spigot down so that all of it is accessible so we can take full advantage of the talents and the skills and the dedication of all of the 2.6 million who volunteered to serve.
Consider another example. I keep hearing people talk about the stress on the Guard and the Reserve. If you would put the second chart—I hope you can see it from there. The fact is, that since September 2001, we have mobilized only 36 percent of the Selective Reserve, a little over one-third of the available forces in the Selective Reserve, and we have not drawn on the Individual Ready Reserve.
But while certain skills are in demand, as the chart behind me shows to the right, only a very small fraction of the Guard and Reserve, just 7.15 percent, have been involuntary mobilized more than once since 1990. That is to say, in 13 years only 7.15 percent of the Guard and Reserve have been mobilized more than once; and the vast majority of our Guard and Reserve forces, over 60 percent, have not been mobilized to fight the Global War On Terror. Indeed, I am told that a full 58 percent of the current Selective Reserve, or about 500,000 troops, have not been involuntary mobilized in the past 10 years.
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What does that tell us? Well, first, it argues that we have too few Guard and Reserve forces with the skill sets that are in high demand and too many Guard and Reserve forces with skills that are in little or no demand. So we need to balance that within the Guard and Reserve.
Second, it indicates that we need to rebalance the skill sets within the Reserve Components and the Active Components so that we have enough of the right kinds of forces available to accomplish our missions in the Active force and we don't have to keep overusing that small percentage of the Guard and Reserve that have in fact been called up more than once in the last ten years.
And, third, it suggests that we need to focus on transforming the forces for the future, making sure we continue to increase the capability of the force and, thus, our ability to do more with the forces we have; and we are working to do just that.
In looking at our Global Force Posture Review, some observers have focused on the number of troops, tanks, ships that we might add or remove in a given part of the world. I would submit that that is one measure, but it is not the only measure. If you have 10 of something and you reduce it by 5—tanks, for example—but you remain—you replace the remaining 5 tanks with a vastly more capable tank, you end up not having 50 percent of the capability, but the same capability, even though the numbers have been reduced.
Today, the Navy, for example, is reducing its force levels modestly. Yet because of the way they are arranging themselves, they are going to have more combat power available than they did when they had more people.
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In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Navy surged more than half of the fleet to the Persian region for the fight. With the end of the major combat operations, instead of keeping two or three carrier strike groups forward deployed, they quickly redeployed all their carrier strike groups to home base, and by doing so they reset the force in a way that will allow them to surge over 50 percent more combat power on short notice to deal with future contingencies.
The result? Today, six aircraft carrier strike groups are available to respond immediately to any crisis that could confront us, all while the Navy is moderately reducing the size of its Active force.
The Army, by contrast, has put forward a plan that, by using emergency powers, will increase the force levels by roughly six percent. But because of the way they are going to do it, General Schoomaker estimates that the Army will be adding not 6 percent but up to 30 percent more combat power. Instead of adding more divisions, the Army is focusing instead on creating a 21st century modular Army made up of self-contained, more self-sustaining brigades that are available to work with any division commander. As a result, 75 percent of Army brigades structures should always be ready in the event of a crisis.
He is proposing that they go from some 33 brigades today up to 43 over the next 4 years, with an offramp possible, and all the way up to 48 brigades, up from 33 over a 5-year period.
Five or six?
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General PACE. Six total.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Six total.
The Army plan is a good one, in my view, but because we will be using emergency powers, we will have the flexibility to reduce the number of Active troops if the security situation permits and/or if some of the efficiencies that he is putting in place permit. We won't know that. You can't look out six years and be certain. We will have that flexibility.
The point is, the focus needs to be more than on just numbers of troops. It should be on finding ways to better manage the force, as we have, and by increasing the speed, agility, the modularity, the capability, and the usability of those forces.
Today, DOD has several dozen initiatives under way to improve the management of the force and to increase its capability. We are investing in new information age technologies, less manpower intensive platforms, and technology. We are working to increase the jointness of the forces. We are taking civilian tasks currently done by uniformed personnel and converting them to civilian jobs, freeing military personnel for military tasks. And we have begun consultations with allies and friends about ways to transform our global force posture to further increase our capability. We are working to rebalance the Active and Reserve Components, taking the skills that are now found almost exclusively in Reserve Components and moving them into the Active force; moving forces out of low-demand specialties such as artillery, heavy artillery, and into high-demand capabilities such as military police, civil affairs, and Special Operation Forces, skill sets that have been used extensively from the Reserves and the Guard.
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A number of you on this committee have served in the Guard and Reserve, and each of us knew when we signed up it was not simply to serve one weekend a month and two weeks Active Duty. We signed up so that, if war were visited on our country, we would be ready to become part of the Active force. And on September 11th war was visited in our country.
If we were not to call up the Guard and Reserve today, then why would we have them at all? This is the purpose of the Guard and the Reserve and the total force concept. It is what they signed up for; and, God bless them, the vast majority of them are eager to serve, a fact that has been borne out by the large number of those who stepped forward and volunteered to be mobilized for service in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our responsibility is to do everything we can to see that they are treated respectfully, managed effectively, and that they have the tools needed to win today's war and to deter future conflicts.
Today, because DOD has the flexibility to adjust troop levels as the security situation requires, we believe that a statutory end strength increase would take away that flexibility to manage the force.
First, if the current increased demand turns out to be a spike, the Department would face a substantial cost of supporting a larger force when it may no longer be needed.
Second, if we permanently increase statutory end strength, we will have to take the cost out of the DOD top line. That will require cuts in other parts of the defense budget, crowding out investments in the very programs that will allow us to manage the force and make it more capable.
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I urge Congress to not lock us into a force, size, and structure statutorily that may or may not be appropriate in the period ahead.
The 2005 budget before you is, in a real sense, a request for a second installment of funding for the transformation priorities set out in the President's 2004 request.
In 2005, we requested $29 billion for investment in transforming military capabilities. We have requested an additional fund to strengthen intelligence, including critical funds to increase DOD human intelligence capabilities, persistent surveillance, as well as technical analysis and information sharing. We have requested $11.1 billion to support procurement of 9 ships in 2005. In all, the President has requested $75 billion for procurement in 2005 and $69 billion for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).
We also need your continuing support for two initiatives that are critical to transformation, the Global Posture Review and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission scheduled for 2005. These are important initiatives.
We need base realignment and closure (BRAC) to rationalize our infrastructure with the new defense strategy and to eliminate unneeded bases and facilities that are costing the taxpayers billions of dollars to support. We need the global posture changes to help us reposition our forces from around the world so that we are stationed not where the wars of the 20th century happen to end, but rather they are arranged in a way that will allow them to deter and, as necessary, defeat potential adversaries who might threaten our security, or that of friends and allies, in the 21st century.
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Mr. Chairman, the President has asked Congress for $401.7 billion for fiscal year 2005. It is an enormous amount of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. Such investments will likely be required for a number of years to come because our Nation is engaged in a struggle that could go on for some time. Our objective is to ensure that our Armed Forces are the best-trained, the best-equipped fighting force in the world and that we treat the volunteers, Active, Guard and Reserve that make up the force with the respect to measure it with their sacrifice and their dedication.
Mr. Chairman, I have some remarks on the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which I could present or I could defer. I don't know how you would like to proceed on that.
The CHAIRMAN. Sure. I think you are probably going to be asked a question or two about WMD, so fire away.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I think it is probably—even though this is a budget hearing, I think it is probably good to at least set forth some thoughts.
During my confirmation hearing three years ago in the Senate, I was asked what would keep me up at night. I answered: intelligence. I said that because the challenge facing the intelligence community then and today is truly difficult. Their task is to penetrate closed societies and organizations.
If you could put up the chart. This is the Korean Peninsula. In the middle you see the line is the Demilitarized Zone. South are the South Korean people, the same people that are in North Korea. In the south you can see the energy, a night picture from a satellite. They have got a vibrant economy, they have got a vibrant democracy, they are a major trading partner with the world; and in the north is darkness. The task is to penetrate closed societies like this and organizations to try to learn things that our adversaries don't want us to know, often not knowing precisely what it is we need to know, while the adversaries know precisely what it is they don't want us to know. That is a tough assignment for the intelligence community. Let there be no doubt.
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Intelligence agencies are operating in an area of surprise, when new threats can emerge suddenly with little or no warning, as happened on September 11th, and it is their task to try to connect the dots before the fact so that action can be taken to protect the American people.
Think how hard it is to connect the dots after the fact. We have got—what—four or five different commissions looking into that, and it is terribly difficult. Connecting them before the fact is vastly more difficult, and they must do this in an age when the margin for error is small, when terrorist networks and terrorist states are pursuing weapons of mass destruction and the consequences of underestimating a threat could be the loss of potentially tens of thousands of innocent lives.
The men and women in the intelligence community have a tough and often thankless job. If they fail, the world knows it; and when they succeed, as they often do, to our country's great benefit, their accomplishments often have to remain secret. We can't always discuss successes in open session, but it is certainly worth all of us to know that they exist.
I hope and trust that the Director of Central Intelligence in the days ahead will be able to make public some recent examples of successes, because there have been many, and I think it is important that the impression that has been and is currently being created of broad intelligence failures can be dispelled and balanced with truth.
I can say that the intelligence community support in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the Global War On Terror overall has contributed to speed the precision and the success of those operations and has saved countless lives. Their support to the battlefield commanders has been considerable.
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We are blessed that so many fine individuals have stepped forward to serve in the intelligence community and are willing to work under great pressure and, in more than a few cases, risk their lives. They faced a difficult challenge in the case of Iraq. They knew the history of the regime, its use of chemical weapons on its own peoples and its neighbors. They knew what had been discovered during the inspections after the Persian Gulf War. Some of which was far more advanced than the pre-Gulf War intelligence had indicated. And they were keen observers of the reports that The World Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) submitted in the 1990s.
They and others did their best to penetrate the secrets of the regime of Saddam Hussein after the inspectors left in 1998. It was the consensus of the intelligence community and of successive administrations of both parties and of the Congress that reviewed the same intelligence and much of the international community's intelligence organizations that Saddam Hussein had and was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam Hussein's behavior throughout the period reinforced that conclusion. He did not behave like someone who was disarming and wanted to prove he was doing so. He did not open up his country to the world as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and South Africa had previously done and as Libya is doing today. Instead, he continued to give up tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues that he could have had, but because of the U.N. sanctions and because he would not open up his country, he was denied those tens of billions of dollars.
He could have had them simply by demonstrating that he had disarmed. Why did he do that? His regime filed with the United Nations what almost everybody agreed was a fraudulent declaration, and he ignored the final opportunity afforded him by U.N. Resolution 1441. Why?
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The Congress, the national security teams in both the past and the current administrations looked essentially at the same intelligence. They came to similar conclusions: that the Iraqi regime posed a threat and should be changed, and Congress passed legislation for regime change. In the end, the coalition of nations decided to enforce the U.N.'s resolutions.
David Kay served in Iraq for some six months, directing the work of the Iraq Survey Group, the ISG. He and the group worked hard under difficult circumstances and dangerous conditions, and they brought forward important information. Dr. Kay is a scientist and an experienced weapons inspector. He outlined for the Congress his hypothesis on the difference between pre-war estimates of Iraq's WMD and what has been found thus far on the ground.
While it is too early to come to final conclusions, given the work still to be done—and there is work still to be done and it is too soon to make final conclusions—there are several alternative views that seem to be being postulated in the press and in the media.
First is the theory that weapons of mass destruction might not have existed at the start of the war. Second is that it is possible that WMD did exist, but was transferred in whole or in part to one or more other countries. Third, you see the theory that it is possible that WMD existed but was dispersed and hidden throughout Iraq and it is still there. Next, it is possible that WMD existed, but was destroyed is another theory. Another is that it is possible that Iraq had small quantities of biological and chemical agents, but also had a surge capability for a rapid build-up and that we may eventually find those small quantities in the months ahead.
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If you think about it, the hole that Saddam Hussein was found in was big enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of people, and the troops had gone by that place a number of times before finding Saddam Hussein.
Finally, there is a theory that it could have been a charade; that is to say that Saddam Hussein fooled his neighbors and the world. A theory that he fooled the members of his own regime. Or the idea that Saddam Hussein himself might have been fooled by his own people who may have tricked him into believing that he had the capabilities that he had ordered them to have that they didn't really have.
Well, we will learn more about those various theories in the weeks and months ahead as the Iraqi Survey Group finishes its work.
This much has been confirmed: The intelligence community got it essentially right on the Iraqi missile programs. Iraq was exceeding the U.N.-imposed missile range limits. Documents found by the ISG show evidence of high-level negotiations between Iraq and North Korea for the transfer of still-longer-range missile technology.
If we were to accept that Iraq had a surge capability for biological and chemical agents, his missiles could have been armed with those weapons of mass destruction and used to threaten his neighbors.
It is the job of Dr. Kay's successor and the Iraq Survey Group to pursue these issues wherever the facts may take them. It is a difficult task. If you think about it, it took us ten months to find Saddam Hussein; and, unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects, chemical or biological weapons, once buried can stay buried. In a country the size of California, the chances of inspectors finding something buried in the ground without their being led to it and tipped off to it and taken directly there, as was the case with Saddam Hussein, is minimal.
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As Dr. Kay testified, what we have learned thus far has not proven that Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated he had, but it also has not proven the opposite. The ISG's work is not complete. There are some 1,300 people in the ISG in Iraq working hard at personal risk to find ground troops. When that work is complete, we will know more. We may even then not know everything. Whatever the final outcome, it is important that we seize the opportunity to derive lessons learned to inform future decisions.
In DOD, the Joint Forces Command has done an extensive review of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The intelligence community is also looking at lessons learned.
In addition to the lessons learned from Iraq, it is important that we step back and take a look at the bigger picture and see that U.S. intelligence capabilities are strengthened sufficiently to meet the threats and challenges of the 21st century.
The President has announced the formation of a bipartisan commission on strengthening U.S. intelligence communities. It will review past successes of the community as well as where the situation suggests failures to examine whether the community has the right skills, the proper resources and the appropriate authorities to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Intelligence will never be perfect. We do not, we will not, and we cannot know everything that is going on in the world. If at this important moment we mistake intelligence for irrefutable evidence, analysts might become hesitant to inform policymakers of what they think they know, what they know that they don't know, and what they think; and policymakers, bereft of intelligence, will find themselves much less able to make the prudential judgments necessary to protect our country.
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I am convinced that the President did the right thing in Iraq. I came to my conclusions based on the intelligence we all saw, just as each of you made your judgments and cast your votes based on that same information.
The President has sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Nation. With respect to Iraq, he took the available evidence into account, he took into account September 11th, he took into account Saddam Hussein's behavior of deception, he took into account Iraq's ongoing defiance of the United Nations and the fact that he was still shooting at U.S. and U.K. aircraft that were enforcing U.N. Resolutions in northern and southern no fly zones, and he took into account the fact that this was a vicious regime that had used weapons of mass destruction against it own people, against its neighbors and murdered and tortured the Iraqi people for decades.
The President went to the United Nations, and the Security Council passed a 17th resolution. He came here to this Congress and, based on the same intelligence, the Congress supported military action if the regime failed to take that final opportunity to cooperate with the United Nations. And when Saddam Hussein did pass up that final opportunity, the President gave him still another opportunity, an ultimatum to leave the country. Only then, when all alternatives had been fully exhausted, did the coalition act to liberate Iraq, and ours is a safer world today, and the Iraqi people are far better off.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
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[The prepared statement of Secretary Rumsfeld can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. General Pace, the floor is yours, sir.
General PACE. Thank you, members of the committee.
Sir, General Myers prepared a written statement which I would ask to be submitted as part of the testimony for today.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, we will put that in the record.
General PACE. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of General Myers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF GEN. PETER PACE, VICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
General PACE. I will keep my opening comments brief, but I would be remiss if I didn't say a few things.
First, a very sincere thank you to this committee and Congress for the superb support——
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The CHAIRMAN. You might pull that mike a little closer to you, General. And, General, also could you convey to General Myers our condolences on the loss and his family. He has been before this committee many times, spent a lot of time with us over the last year or so, and let him know that we are thinking about him.
General PACE. I will do that, sir. Thank you very much.
I would like to thank the committee on behalf of all of us in uniform for the superb support. And this is not pro forma words. These are the truth: That we have the best-equipped, best-trained, most capable Armed Forces in the world because of sustained, strong, bipartisan support of the Congress, and we deeply appreciate it, sir.
I would like to thank the servicemen and women who serve our country overseas and here at home. They have been doing everything superbly well; and, like others, have already said today, we are very, very proud of them. Thank their families. They sacrifice here at home sometimes more than those who deploy. They worry about us, they keep their family tied together at home, and their individual sacrifices mean a lot to this country.
We should also thank the employers of our superb Guard and Reserve. These are wonderful individuals who are making significant contributions when they had their uniform on. And because they are as good as they are in the military, we understand that some business somewhere is missing a key member of their team, and we appreciate the support of the employers around the world.
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We are a nation at war, but we are not in this war by ourselves. Our coalition partners have been and will continue to be invaluable in this fight. Together with them we will protect our home lands and we will defeat terrorism.
This will be a long and difficult fight, but it is certainly a fight worthy of the extraordinary efforts of your soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen. When you visit with them, as many of you have, when you look them in the eye, you understand immediately, they get it. They are proud of what they are doing. They understand what is at stake, and they understand that the many good things that they are doing don't always make it onto the evening news, but they also understand that those good works which they are doing, the security that they are providing, the schools that they are rebuilding, the hospitals that they are building, the roads, the electricity network, the water, all that they are doing is providing the very fabric of the societies that would allow representative governments to emerge in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Their extraordinary efforts overseas have been and must continue to be matched at home by our collective will, patience, and commitment. Our Nation and those who serve her deserve no less.
I am proud to sit here before you today representing each of them. I am proud to be part of this process with you, and I look forward to your questions.
The CHAIRMAN. General, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Pace can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, General Pace, and all your team, thank you for the great service over the last year. I appreciate your hard work and all the long hours we have spent, tons of hours on briefings and keeping Congress up to speed as we move through this operation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Zakheim, thank you for your patient explanation over many, many months in your shop. We thank you for what you are doing.
I will reserve my questions and recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
As all of us know, these are very difficult days for our country and for the challenges that we have. I have a deep concern—let me speak, Mr. Secretary, about Iraq. There are two Damocles swords that hang over this situation, and both of them are timetables. One timetable is the transfer of sovereignty on June the 30th, the other is the March 31 deadline that is laid out for a status of forces agreement which gives us the guidelines from that moment on as to the limitations and the authorizations of our military in Iraq.
General Abizaid said last week that it is unlikely to get a status of forces agreement by June the 30th, much less by the deadline of March the 31st. The status forces agreement could be—and I hope it is not—could be a serious problem if it limits the rules of engagement and limits our ability to go after the guerillas in any manner whatsoever. If it does that, it would put our forces in far more danger than they are now.
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Looking to the June 30th transfer of sovereignty, in my opinion I don't think it can happen by that time. We don't know what type of selection process we will have.
I think as we speak today—yesterday, I think—the United Nations is sending a team in to see what type of selection, elections, caucuses, or combination thereof would work and what would come to pass. We don't know what the constitution will look like. We don't know what type of selection process, election or something like that. We don't know who the candidates may be.
We don't know who, of course, will be the government, which, as I understand it, will be an 18-month government from election, if I am correct. That government would also have the power to undo any status of forces agreement that would be made earlier. So I just don't—I think we may be rushing to judgment on this whole effort.
I do notice the present—the administration—let me see if I can get this right, Mr. Secretary. Administration sources say that the President may be willing to postpone Iraqi self-rule as a last resort. I don't think there is any question about it. It has to be done. This is too serious to rush into something that may not work. If it doesn't work, I think there is a strong possibility of civil war, which no one wants.
I would ask, Mr. Secretary, for your thoughts on this, in my opinion, extremely serious situation, please.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman Skelton, you have elevated an enormously important issue that is, as you suggested, currently being discussed in Washington and in the coalition countries that have exactly the same circumstance we do. There are 34 countries now with forces in there, and each of them have the same circumstance: the need to make sure that we have the ability to assure the status of our forces.
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The decisions as to when sovereignty will pass will be a decision made by the President and the coalition. The target date is June 30th. The theory behind that was that it is a good thing to try to get the Iraqis taking a bigger role in their own lives and to have that responsibility.
No one wants to rush it. On the other hand, the feeling is that, to the extent the Iraqi people see the Iraqis governing themselves, they are more likely to have a stake in how that is done and in the future of that. So the desire has been to have governance move along a track, security move along a track, and we are now up to 200,000 Iraqi security forces and have the essential services—electricity, water, power—all move along together because each is, in one way or another, dependent on the other.
The subject of the status of forces agreement is something that is being discussed at the present time. I don't know that there is anything magical about March 31st. Obviously, you have to have a timetable so you set out dates; and to the extent it can be done then, fine. In the last analysis, nothing would take effect until sovereignty transferred anyway, and so that takes you down to June 30th or whenever that actually happens, depending on the facts on the ground.
I think your concern about civil strife is realistic. Historically, one looks at that country, and we know they have had civil strife. We also know that there are terrorists who would like to foment civil strife because it is to their advantage. So what we are doing is we are sensitive to the points you have raised. They are terribly important. I can assure you we are not going to leave our forces nor are the other 33 countries going to leave their forces in a circumstance that is disadvantageous.
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Mr. SKELTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Rumsfeld, General Pace, Secretary Zakheim, thank you all for being here. I have three points I would like to make and end with a question.
The first regards intelligence which you referred to, Secretary Rumsfeld. I take right great pride that it was this committee that back in 2000 and 2001 put language in both of our defense bills calling for the creation of a national operations and analysis hub or a national integrated data fusion center to bring together all 33 classified systems of the Federal Government.
It was then-Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre that asked me to convene a meeting in my office one year before 9/11, bringing in his counterparts in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which I did. We briefed the three members, and it was the CIA and the FBI who at that time said we don't need the capability, one year before 9/11. We don't need to have the capability of data mining and bringing in all the various data points that could allow us to understand emerging threats.
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This is an important point for us to think about in looking at intelligence capabilities, and this committee was on the forefront of that effort.
The second point. I just led a delegation with five members of this committee through Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq. We stayed overnight at the K2 base in Uzbekistan and spent a day at Ramstein with our troops that are on their way home. In fact, we bought 12 troops back with us who had been injured.
The two key things that we heard from them out in the field was the need for immediate assistance with linguistics all the way down to the basic brigade level, from General Ordiano's troops, as well as additional use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)s, especially small, portable UAVs, to assist us in allowing our soldiers to understand the immediate threat they were facing.
I would ask you, as I have in previous meetings all day today, to assist us in addressing each of those concerns.
Finally, I want to talk about something very specific to what you addressed, weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps the most important of our 45 meetings on the 6-day trip, Secretary Rumsfeld, wasn't the meeting with Qadhafi, although it was interesting. It was an hour and a half meeting with a two-star general with named Keith Dayton.
Because, you know, Mr. Secretary, I, like the rest of America, was under the wrong impression. Based on what the media has been saying and interpreting Mr. Kay's comments—Dr. Kay's comments, I thought Dr. Kay ran the Iraq Survey Group. I learned, and I would ask you to verify, that Dr. Kay was only a consultant to the two-star General Dayton, who has the responsibility, as he has had since this was stood up last March.
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Furthermore, all of us sitting around the table list-ening to General Dayton and his team were perplexed because of their absolute frustration with the way the media has interpreted what Dr. Kay said and the circumstances around Dr. Kay's departure. I, for one, wasn't aware that there was some frustration between Dr. Kay and the team because Dr. Kay wanted all the assets in one area, where that team had other responsibilities related to antiterrorism; and I wasn't aware that he hadn't even been in the theater for the previous several months. So, therefore, Mr. Secretary, I don't think the American people, and I don't think Members of Congress, have been given, as Paul Harvey said, the other side of the story.
So, Mr. Secretary, I would ask you, would you allow the real leader of the Iraq Survey Group, General Keith Dayton, to travel back to the U.S. as the existing commander of the Iraq survey team to answer questions before this Congress as to the ongoing efforts to uncover weapons of mass destruction, to explain to us as he did over in Iraq about the efforts of going through the Iraq's lakes and rivers, which is just now beginning, to follow up leads of where we think deposits may have been placed, to focus on the millions of pages of yet unread and unanalyzed data that would give us better access to where this material——
You would think by reading the media—and some of Dr. Kay's comments were very credible, and I am not taking away his credibility. But you would think with the distortion of the media and the way this thing has been polarized by some people in this country with other purposes, perhaps, that perhaps Dr. Kay has said it is all over, we lost, it is time to clear up. That was not what we heard. That was not what the five members of this committee heard the leader in charge of the Iraq Survey Group, General Keith Dayton, say to us in a meeting with all of his subordinates. In fact, we heard his frustration, we felt his frustration.
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I think it is time the American people and the Congress listen to what General Dayton has to say; and I would ask you again, will you support allowing the Congress, in this case the House of Representatives, to present, as Paul Harvey said many times, the other side of the story?
Thank you.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman Weldon, first, I agree with you on the importance of fused data centers and bringing intelligence together.
Second, I agree with you fully on the need for Arabic linguists. It is something that they are not created in five minutes, unfortunately; and we have got a major effort going on that. One of the difficulties is the question of clearances. You can get a great many people who can do the work, and the question is, how do you vet them fast. And that is very difficult to do.
Third, I am going to ask Pete Pace to comment on small UAVs in a minute.
With respect to the Iraqi Survey Group, the organizational arrangement is as follows: General Dayton has the administrative responsibility for the entire Iraqi Survey Group. I suggested and George Tenet agreed that the person who made the judgments ought to be someone reporting to George Tenet and the intelligence community about which people ought to be interrogated, in what order, what questions ought to be asked and what pieces of documentation, the millions of pages you point out, ought to be translated first and all of those things. And he, Dr. Kay, had the rudder on that. The emphasis was to be on weapons of mass destruction, with other things, the look for Mr. Speicher, the counterterrorism problems.
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As we went along, it was pretty clear that our people were not being killed by weapons of mass destruction. Our people were being killed by terrorists. The counterterrorist role became important, and it was elevated.
I will say this. If you put yourself in their shoes, you have a prisoner or you have potential people who can—nonprisoners who can give you information. If you talk to them and interrogate them, out of their mouth or out of the documentation may come information about weapons of mass destruction. Just as likely would come information where some senior Iraqi people are, Saddam Hussein or their sons or other folks we are looking for. Just as likely might come information about terrorist cells. So these sources could produce information in all of those categories.
But there naturally was a tension. If one were there, assigned there looking for weapons of mass destruction, as Dr. Kay was, he would like all the focus on that.
I certainly have no problem at all with General Dayton coming back and testifying at some point. He is a very talented man. By everyone's report, he seems to have done an excellent job there.
I also fully agree with you that the public impression about Dr. Kay's testimony is quite different than the impression one gets by reading the transcript or watching the tape as I have done.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
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The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Aloha, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Secretary, the administration and you have indicated at various times since this attack on Baghdad and the war which followed it—took place that the United States or at least the intention of the administration was that you not leave until—various phrases were used: The job was done, we wouldn't cut and run, there would be establishment of sovereignty.
Nonetheless, there has been an indication that a date has been set, June 30, for the transfer of power. I guess it could be characterized as some handover of sovereignty, which we are now exercising power. I am unable to see in my very review of this budget or in the accompanying documents that have been provided to us what you are talking about. I can't see anything in this budget that provides for it.
Who are we turning over sovereignty to on June 30? Under what circumstances is this authority to be turned over? What constitutes this authority?
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I see no preliminary documents either in that are available for open discussion or in any of the closed briefings that we have had about what constitutes a status of force agreement in terms of how military authority is to be exercised. I have heard some discussion that we can't go into here about what the intentions might be in that regard, but I see nothing that shows in this budget how you are prepared for that.
We need to know, Mr. Secretary, is there going to be a direct election of some kind? Is there going to be a Council takeover? Is there going to be some kind of relationship between the United States military and this new sovereign authority that is supposed to come into existence on June 30? And how are we exactly supposed to budget for that in the absence of any kind of presentation to this committee with regard to what is going to constitute this new institution that is supposed to come into existence on the 30 of June?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, the issues you raised about governance are important. They tend not to be budget matters as such. You are quite correct. The President has said and others have said, Secretary Powell, that the intention is to stay—the coalition would stay as long as it was needed and not a day longer.
What that means from a security standpoint is that the coalition would stay until that point where security responsibilities could be transferred to the Iraqi people. I would totally disconnect that from sovereignty.
There has been confusion in a lot of people's minds that if you transferred sovereignty on June 30, which is the target date that the Governing Council of Iraq has set, that that means the forces leave; and, of course, that would create an unstable situation. The two are disconnected. The transfer of sovereignty is going to be on a path where governance will transfer. The security situation—the transfer of security responsibilities will be incremental, it will be over time, and it undoubtedly would extend past the time that sovereignty passed.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. If that is the case and they are disconnected, does that mean they are going to run on parallel tracks, that the security decisions will be made by the United States and its ally, apparently Great Britain and its associates there in this coalition? You are going to have a separate security arrangement and decision-making take place parallel with an Iraqi government that is exercising sovereignty in some other aspect?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, just to maybe provide a word picture, think of Afghanistan. Afghanistan, we have a situation where a transitional government was put in place. They had a loya jurga. They have elected Mr. Karzai. He has a government. We still have security responsibilities in Afghanistan—the coalition.
The 34 countries that are in Iraq will undoubtedly have security responsibilities, and some sort of an arrangement will be made with the transitional government and, ultimately, the sovereign government as to how that will work, just as those kinds of arrangements were made in Afghanistan. And it is something that can work quite smoothly.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It can? You really believe that? How is this going to work smoothly if, by your own definition, that it is going to be disconnected from this sovereignty?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Do you consider the situation in Afghanistan disconnected? I don't quite know what you mean by the word.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You brought up Afghanistan. If you want to go into Afghanistan, we can go into that, too. It is working beautifully there. They are producing more drugs now than they ever did before. So we can talk all kinds of things that are connected with disconnection between exercise of sovereignty and security issues.
If you are saying to us that we have to now provide a budget for you, which is what this hearing is all about, we have to have some idea of what is going to be expected of our troops in terms of provision of security in an arrangement of sovereignty, which is unknown to us at this point.
The CHAIRMAN. Let me advise my colleague we have a lot of folks that want to ask questions, and the time has run out. But Mr. Secretary, why don't you answer that one, and we will go to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am perfectly willing to have the answer come in written form. I don't think the answer could be summarized in one or two minutes. I am trying to take what time I do have to indicate that a presentation of the logistics of a budget, absent understanding what the arrangements are going to be for this handover of sovereignty, is going to leave this committee in a very poor position to be able to adequately budget.
The CHAIRMAN. The budget document is not supposed to reflect the policy of the handoff in Iraq. That obviously is of interest to the members of the committee; and if the gentleman wants to get additional information, we will ask the Secretary to provide it.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the Appendix.]
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman for his question.
The gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, of the many important tasks that lay ahead of us, one of the most important is to figure out how we can get more capability to meet the current threat out of our force structure; and your analogy of the rain barrel, I think, is a good one. To the extent that we can work together to figure out how to change the force structure—which, incidentally, as we all probably recognize, was developed during World War II to meet a much different threat than we face today. So I am interested in your views on two aspects of the many issues involved in the transformation of the Army.
First, in some of our conversations, you and your colleagues have spoken of a new divisional organization involving brigade restructuring. Could you talk a little bit about that and, in particular, please explain how the command structure will change if, in fact, it will. I suspect that will be one of the issues of some interest to many.
Second, what personnel policies are you looking to change? Is the criteria, for example, used in the promotion system as it relates to general officers among changes that are being considered?
Those are my two questions, Mr. Secretary.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. General Pace, do you want to respond?
General PACE. Right now, your United States Army has ten divisions. At the division level they have things like Military Police (MP), artillery and the like. At the brigade level, they have basically infantry; and each of the current brigades is 3,000 soldiers or give and take some. There are 3 infantry brigades per each of those 10 divisions for 30 brigades, plus three brigades that currently exist as independent brigades.
What General Schoomaker has proposed over the next 4 years is to add 1 more brigade to each of those divisions—infantry brigade—and to take from the overhead structure those pieces of artillery, engineers, military police and the like and break that up into fourths and give each of the subordinate brigades now a more robust capability so each brigade would have somewhere around 4,000 to 4,500 soldiers in it.
Right now, to have one complete unit that can stand alone by itself when deployed you must deploy an entire U.S. Army division. What General Schoomaker is looking to do is to make it now four blocks of individuals inside the division that can each deploy on their own so you have a much more flexible opportunity. He will not change the number of divisions, because he does not need more command and control, but what it gives him is not only flexibility within the division, but lets him take division number ten and take brigades from division number one and plug them into it in a way that allows him to mix and match around the world to respond globally. He will, in fact, increase by at least ten brigades his capacity to fulfill the missions that we are giving him.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. David Chu, do you want to respond to the promotion issue?
This is Dr. David Chu, the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness.
Mr. CHU. Thank you very much, sir.
We are continuing to look at the same qualities in terms of promotion we have classically in the past. I think there is a renewed emphasis on innovation as being a significant element of what one looks for in an officer's record for advancement to the most senior positions in the Department. We are, at the Secretary's direction, moving toward trying to stabilize flight officers longer in their posts, particularly those posts where such tenure has been demonstrated to have a high payoff, and to invite senior officers, just as the President invited General Jones, to serve in more than one senior post during the course of their career.
We do have some legislative changes that we think would enhance our ability to do that in front of the Congress, which we are eager to do that as the session proceeds.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you to the witnesses for testifying.
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Secretary Rumsfeld, you mentioned in your opening statement that BRAC—and you know that many of us are focused on the base closure process, especially since we have reached the deadline for comments on the draft criteria issued by the Department. When you announced plans to go forward with the base closure round, you said the process would serve the goals of transformation and jointness. In fact, you wrote in a member to the senior military leadership in 2002, quote, ''a primary objection of BRAC in 2005, in addition to realigning our bases structure to meet our post-Cold War force structure, is to examine and implement opportunities for greater joint activity.''
I must say when I read the draft criteria for BRAC 2005 that came out in December, I thought that I just have easily could have been reading the criteria that was used in 1995 and all of the previous rounds. The concept of jointness receives a passing reference, but transformation appears nowhere in the criteria, and the criteria continues to emphasize factors, the availability of training ranges, and it seems to have little applicability to research and development facilities.
How can the draft criteria be expected to evaluate the contribution of a facility to transformation of the military in general or to the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) in particular? And wouldn't you agree the criteria used to assess a base that hosts an Army and infantry unit, for example, should be different than the criteria for a research and development (R&D) center?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Certainly there is no question but that there are going to be different requirements depending on the activity. Training area, for example, is notably different from an R&D structure and so, too, an armor division. None of the criteria, I suspect, would apply in every single instance.
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What they are designed to do, as I understand it, and part of this is from a law in Congress, is to create a tick list that people would think about as they were going through this process.
One of the things that I assure you will be involved will be the issues of jointness, that the—take training areas, for example. It is critically important that we train the forces that have to fight; and to the extent they train in a service-centric way, as opposed to a joint training activity, they are going to end up not having the kinds of skills in fighting jointly that they need and will be required in this century.
Mr. MEEHAN. The point I am making, Mr. Secretary, when looking at the process, the criteria appears to be the same as used in 1995 and prior BRAC processes; and I am concerned that if the selection process fails to consider these crucial factors that it may severely damage the defense technological base that we have worked so hard to build.
I want to discuss the Department's chemical and biological defense program, which I have jurisdiction over as the ranking member of the terrorism subcommittee. I think the fact that you are not able to appear before your Senate hearing because of a ricin letter sent to Senator Frist is a reminder that the chemical and biological threats are growing not only for the American public, but even more so for our troops in the field. For that reason I was very concerned to read the recent report of the Institute of Medicine of the National Research Council about the Defense Department's chemical and biological defense programs, and it doesn't mince words.
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Quote, ''The committee sees dismal prospects for successful results from the current efforts by DOD's chemical and biological defense program to produce medical biodefense countermeasures. This task has not been given sufficient priority by DOD to produce the intended results. Furthermore, the disjointed and ineffective management and inadequate funding of current efforts are clear indications that the DOD leaders lack an adequate grasp of the commitment, time and scientific expertise, organizational structure and financial resources required for success in developing vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.'' End quote.
Mr. Secretary, considering your background in the pharmaceutical industry, I know that you are aware of how much time and effort and resources must go into the successful development and production of biodefense countermeasures. What are your thoughts on the Institute's conclusion?
And I must say, as I read this report, I was concerned because, you notice in the defense budget, it appears that R&D funds for chemical and biological defense programs are being cut this year by 20 percent from last year, from $560 million this year, which is down from $706 million in fiscal 2004. How are we going to improve this program to ensure our servicemen and women will be provided the protection they need from these dangerous threats with this 20 percent cut?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, I was given a note telling me that the criteria on BRAC that you are referring to comes to me next week from my review prior to submission to Congress. Apparently, you were looking at a draft before I ever saw it.
Dr. Zakheim has passed me a piece of paper that shows the proposals for funding for chemical, biological defense programs. The table of allowance (TOA) dollars actually declined slightly. The outlay dollars are scheduled to go up each year.
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So I wouldn't—I am not sure, I haven't got the calculator out, but I doubt your characterization of what I thought you said, a 30 percent cut—20 percent cut—I think in outlays it is going to be going up for research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E), if I can find it, between 2004 and 2005—you are quite right. It is going down.
Mr. MEEHAN. It is down by 20 percent; and in lieu of the report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Research Council, I wonder if you could comment on that.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I am told that that report is in Dr. Wolfowitz's office for review at the present time.
Mr. MEEHAN. If I could get some kind of a response on that, that would be helpful.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. Secretary, as I listen to you describe the difficulties in intelligence collection a few minutes ago, I am reminded of the analysis that you give us sometimes that there are things you know which are correct, there are things you know which prove to be incorrect, things you know you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know.
I understand that these things are not final, but you could surmise from newspaper articles at least over the past couple of weeks that what we thought we knew in Iraq was wrong—partly, at least—and there was a lot with regard to Libya and the nuclear black market that we didn't know we didn't know or at least maybe we underestimated, all of which, whether those exact things prove to be true or not, all of which seems to confirm to me the importance of having a flexible, adaptable military that can respond to changing circumstances, which seems to me goes to the heart of what transformation is or should be about, although that label gets slapped on all sorts of things these days.
As you said, intelligence will never be perfect, but how satisfied are you at the progress we are making towards a flexible, adaptable military that can move quickly to deal with the things we didn't know; we didn't know that all of a sudden spring up and in an age when weapons of mass destruction can have catastrophic consequences?
Secretary RUMSFELD. First, Congressman, I am sure that everything that is going to become knowable—that is known about Libya, that there will be something that we did not know about their program. On the other hand, when that is written, it will be seen that we knew a whale of a lot and it was a success story for the intelligence community, not a failure on Libya.
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Second, I agree with you completely that the—given the world we live in and the uncertainties that exist, the task is to have an adaptable, agile, lethal, highly capable military that is oriented not simply to fighting big armies and navies and air forces, which is an unlikely prospect in my view for the period immediately ahead, but also capable of dealing with these 21st century threats that we are talking about—the terrorism, cyberattacks, the nanotechnologies that we see being developed today. These are the things that we are going to have to be able to cope with.
How satisfied am I? I am almost never satisfied. I am impatient and have a sense of urgency about getting this done. Meeting after meeting in the Department, I worry that we need to find ways to get multiple leadership centers and more energy put into the change and the transformation. We need more people who are bold and willing to take risks, and we are getting them. I must say, I feel that the things that have been accomplished in the last three years in this Department are truly remarkable. The things that have been started and finished and the initiatives that have been started and are still under way and that we have a team in the institution that is as good as I have ever seen in my career.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me follow up, because I think the people are the key element, and Mr. Saxton asked about specific Army issues. But last year you were before this committee asking for greater flexibility dealing with civilians, which we gave you in a watered down form, and greater flexibility to deal with military personnel issues, things like mandatory retirement age, two-year rotations beyond just general officers, up and out promotion policies, things that add demands to our personnel system and require us to have more people just because of all this turning going on.
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Are you coming back to us again this year asking for greater flexibilities of the sort—for example, that Admiral Clark testified about last year that were essential for him to be able to deal with the Navy? Are those requests back before us that we did not deal with them last year?
Secretary RUMSFELD. There will be some. There are a package of legislative initiatives we plan to propose in the immediate future that will be before the committee. Some involve personnel, as I recall, Dr. Chu?
Mr. CHU. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Secretary RUMSFELD. And I think there are some in the training area, as the Chief of Naval Operations—and then there are some other things. For example—well, I won't get into the details, but we will be up with a proposal.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.
Another gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and welcome, gentlemen. I would like to also thank you for being here and echo the sentiments of my colleagues here about the great job that our men and women in uniform are doing under very tough circumstances; and, in that vein, I have a couple of questions that I would like for you to comment on.
The first one deals with-during the recent break in the district, I had the parent of a young man in the Air Force that asked me if we were substituting Air Force units for Army units. His son was in a transportation company, and apparently they had been put on notice that they were going to go either to Kuwait or Iraq. He wasn't sure which one, and maybe for a good reason. But they were told that they were actually going to be in the transportation—doing the transportation and substituting for an Army unit. Is that taking place and how much of that are you having to do?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Yes, sir, it is taking place; and how much of it is not enough of it, in my view. We need more of it. We have had Army providing force protection for Air Force bases. We have been reaching into the Air Force and having them provide drivers when we have a shortage of drivers. To the extent we can use Active forces, we use them first; and to the extent we can then use Guard and Reserve who have not been called up recently, we tend to use them. We sequence it in that way.
But we are trying to find ways that the services are less service-centric, more joint, more cross training, more cross education, so that, in fact, we can use those forces in ways that make the most sense, rather than having each service have things sitting on the shelf that they are not using when someone else is being overused in a different service.
Mr. REYES. Under those circumstances—and you can understand the concern of spouses and parents that if they are in a transportation unit and they are going to be transporting equipment, material, things on the highways of Iraq and subject to attack, will they be trained? Will they be equipped? Will they be prepared?
I ask that question because in this committee, before going into the war in Iraq, we asked those questions over and over again, both for regular military and for the Reserves and National Guard units, only to find out months later that not everybody had the proper vest, armored vest, that all the Humvees were not properly protected and armored as we had been led to believe on the committee.
So my question is if that kind of tradeoff is going on interservice—and I agree with you because, like you, it makes sense to use them interoperably. They have to be prepared and trained. They have to be equipped. So can you assure us that is, in fact, taking place before anyone goes into Iraq under those circumstances where they normally would not be doing and carrying out those kinds of duties?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. General Pace.
General PACE. You are right. Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman who goes into theater should be and will be properly trained. We have been able to identify the units that will be taking place in this rotation. We have been able to identify the area to which they will be going. We have been able to identify the missions they will be on, whether they be Reserve or they might be doing something a little bit unusual for the Air Force unit. Every one of those units will get the training they need.
With regard to the small arms protective inserts for the flak jackets, as you know, when the war began, the industry was producing about 1,600 sets of that special body protective armor per month. Thanks to Congress's supplemental appropriations and the money that was made available to us, we have been able to ramp that up. We are producing 25,000 sets per month. As of January this year, just last month, we have in theater one full protective set of body armor for each serviceman, woman and DOD civilian in theater; and as the forces rotate in, when they go through Kuwait or Turkey, as they go into theater, they will be issued this protective gear. So everything we can think of that an individual soldier, sailor, airman, Marine needs to operate efficiently, effectively, we are training them, too, and we are equipping them, too.
You mentioned the up-armored Humvees. There were about 500 of those in theater about this time last year—maybe 8 months ago. Now, thanks to redistribution and some new build, we have just shy of 2,000 there. The industry was able to build about 138 per month. Again, thanks to supplemental funding, the industry is able to build 220 per month, and they will be able to build that many for the rest of this year.
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On those armor—on the lightly skinned Humvees that may look pretty big and awesome out here on I-95, on the battlefield they are relatively thin-skinned compared to tanks and other armored vehicles. We have, in fact, bought the applique armor that you can strap on.
So everything we are able to see and all the lessons we have learned we are applying as fast as we can to the units that are going in.
Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I have other things. Can I submit questions for the record?
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. You can submit as many written questions as you want.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hayes.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and welcome, Mr. Secretary, General Pace.
I, too, was in Iraq very recently with Mr. Skelton and Ms. Pelosi. The things we saw in terms of performance and morale of our troops was absolutely unparalleled anywhere, and we appreciate the support that they get.
The budget indicates that 20,700 DOD positions currently filled by uniform personnel will be converted into civilian positions. How will these conversions affect the services and do you expect the temporary increase in end strength as a result of this? I guess substitution is the right word. Sounds like a good idea.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you.
Let me just separate the word end strength, which I think of as a statutory number that we have to be at the beginning of the year and the end of the year, and instead use the word force level. The answer to your question is, yes, that would increase the number of military people available for military jobs. So the force goes up numerically of people available for military jobs, because we have taken them out of civilian jobs. It is a good thing, and we are working on it.
Dr. Zakheim can give you an example. He just transferred a number of people out of a couple of entities and has been replacing them not one for one with civilians, but something considerably less than one for one, and the Air Force that they went back to now has them available to be reassigned and to function and perform military tasks.
Secretary ZAKHEIM. The Finance and Accounting Service is under my office, and we have had several hundred—quite a few hundred people in uniform working essentially as finance types. I worked out with the Secretary of the Air Force and transferred about 300 of those folks back to the Air Force using the new national security personnel system that the Congress allowed us to begin with this year.
We are going to hire back, but not on a one-to-one basis. As the Secretary says, new people who will come in more quickly because now we can actually hire them and offer them jobs quickly. At the same time, the Air Force gets people who will either be quickly retrained or eventually recycled to do what they should be doing.
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There is a similar transfer that is taking place in the Army. Again, a couple of hundred people. Many are retraining at Fort Leavenworth, military police duties, which we are very short of. So there is a model there.
We are talking about 10,700 new slots in fiscal year 2005 on top of 10,000 this year. So this is a program that is already under way and is working.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you, sir.
While I certainly don't believe everything that I read, there are continuing reports of the changing nature of U.S. global footprints, especially in Europe and Asia. The report plans to cut the troops by one-third in Europe. In visiting and talking with many of the host nations where U.S. troops are currently living, to the extent you can discuss it in open meeting, what is the status of these discussions and to what degree are these discussions included in the budget? If they are not included, do you expect changes to come in 2006, especially as it pertains to military construction (MILCON)?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, the progress on refashioning and rethinking our global footprint is well along. It is not firm, but it is well along, and we have begun the process of consulting with the Congress and begun the process of consulting with our friends and allies around the world.
We are going to be bringing back to the United States a number of troops that have been stationed overseas for decades. The number you cited from the press I would not want to sign up to. There is so much discussion to take place.
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Third, the MILCON issue is the toughest because it will probably play out over three, four, five, six years; and it depends how much it will cost and how we get things in the queue. So it is not something that will happen fast. It is something we will get resolution and conviction with the Congress. We will get resolution and conviction with the countries that are going to be affected and we will put in place a process so it will play out over a period of years.
Mr. HAYES. While in the field and several different locations, there was discussion of perhaps locating a repair and rework facility nearer the theater so we wouldn't have to ship this equipment back, which would have timing and financial implications. Has that been discussed?
Secretary RUMSFELD. It has been discussed. One of the thoughts, particularly with preposition stocks, one might do that, but it is—I don't know the details. It would be the Army, essentially, and the Marines.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.
Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Mr. Secretary, it is good to see you again and particularly good to see you today after your starring role in Doonesbury on Sunday. Your fame has gone up.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I didn't see it. I am worried.
Dr. SNYDER. I am sorry I brought it up then.
Mr. Secretary, in your written statement, as you have many times talked about before, having the tools for fighting the wars of the future, which can be over the next several decades. One of the concerns I have with the budget, and it is not just the DOD budget, but throughout other aspects of the budget, is inadequate funding and decreases in funding for research.
This morning at the Veterans Administration, VA, hearing on the budget with Secretary Principi, they cut $50 million out of their medical research. They are hoping to get that money from National Institute of Health (NIH). But the NIH budget went up only 2.6 percent, which is not keeping pace with medical inflation at all; and I suspect NIH is not going to find $50 million to give to the VA.
The DOD budget, Mr. Secretary—I will let—I thought maybe he was giving you a copy of Doonesbury. But in the budget, the part that concerns me is not the applied research, but the basic research. Basic research in the DOD budget goes down four percent—four percent. For the science and technology component, it goes down to 11 percent. This is the most basic stuff. This is fighting wars 20, 30 years from now. If we keep doing this, we will not maintain that technological edge, and we don't know what that edge is going to be in the future. So I would really ask you all to revisit that. If the Administration doesn't want to reassess that, it is going to be difficult for the Congress to do it.
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The second issue I wanted to ask you about is this whole issue of end strength, and I think you did a good job today of describing to us and the American people the difference between force levels and end strength. I think there has been some confusion with some of the public discussions on that issue.
You have laid out and General Schoomaker has laid out and has discussed this issue of what you are trying to do and how this ties in with transformation, these temporary increases and all that. I think there is a credibility problem on this, and I would just encourage you all—I think we can avoid big fights on this if this were part of the regular budget, but by making it part of the supplemental and making these personnel changes out of the supplemental, not part of the regular budget process, what we are doing is essentially shifting a significant part of transformation out of the regular budget discussion. Now if I was in your shoes, I would say, yeah, I would be willing to do that, but I don't want you to take the funding out of personnel changes out of other stuff that we need.
I think that is a discussion we ought to have. If this is part of the supplemental and funded by the supplemental, I think it is a poor way to do business over both the short and long-run. Do you understand my point?
Secretary RUMSFELD. I see your point.
First, let me say I agree with you that research and basic research are critically important.
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Dr. Zakheim, do you want to make a quick comment?
Secretary ZAKHEIM. Compare our requests last year. We are up in both basic and applied research, and there is real growth in the entire science and technology budget.
Secretary RUMSFELD. With respect to the issue of whether it is funded in the normal budget or in a supplemental, the advantage of doing it in a normal budget is obvious, but we can achieve that same value by having a hearing here on the subject, I think.
The advantage of the supplemental, it seems to me that the people who say what ought to go into a supplemental include reconstitution of the force. And what is involved here, as you know from General Schoomaker, he is trying to do three things at once. He is trying to shift the organization of the force. He is trying to shift the nature of the force from a—to a more troop detail—better troop detail ratio, going from 33 to 43 to 48 brigades and how they are organized; and he is using the fact of reconstitution as he brings people home to achieve that.
It is a natural portion of a reconstitution supplemental budget. It is also something that is important substantively because of what is going on internally. So it is half of one and half of the other. And I—everyone was consulted and came to it in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and at the Department and came to the conclusion that the money is already in this year's tranche.
Secretary ZAKHEIM. The money is available in the supplemental, the 2004 supplemental, to do this.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. That has already passed.
Secretary ZAKHEIM. Once we understand the parameters of the 2005 supplemental, there is a sense that will be able to be accommodated, as well. We are still working on the specific numbers.
Dr. SNYDER. Just a final comment. I understand what you said about General Schoomaker doing all these things at once, but those are crucial things in the history of this country in the future of fighting wars. You are doing it outside the normal budget process, and I don't think it is the way to do business in the long-run. I appreciate it.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I would be delighted to have a totally separate hearing on this. Because you are exactly right, this is enormously important, what the Army is going to be doing over the next 4 years; and I think it is important to engage it substantively quite apart from its dollar implications.
The CHAIRMAN. Let me remind Dr. Snyder we do have an initial briefing on this from the Army next Thursday at two o'clock.
The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons.
Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I thank the Secretary for his testimony.
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I note in particular his reference on page one to the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and the sacrifice of their families who also serve. I think, since the Secretary has served in the Reserves, I think he understands, as many of us do, the important role of the families who also serve; and that goes to two of the points that I would like to make and the question I would like to ask.
There was previous reference to the up-armor Humvees. There are approximately 11,000 Humvees in theater in Iraq today. Two thousand are up armor, and the kits that are being sent over there are not going to complete the process, I am told, until sometime towards the end of this year. So those Reserve forces and those Guard forces that have been over there for a year will be rotating back before that process is complete; and, in fact, those other Guard and Reserve forces going over will not be equipped in time.
The thing that bothers me, Mr. Secretary, is that last fall, when you very generously took my memo of recommendations based on my trip, all of the points that I raised were answered and solved in an expeditious manner. But when a top priority was placed on the up-armor Humvees issue, I don't think it was implemented as fast as it could be.
I am told there are over 59 vendors who are testing kits up at Aberdeen. Only one has been approved. And the families—the families are worried to death that their son or their daughter is going to get caught in an improvised explosive device (IED). It is mostly the Guard and Reserves that have them, and somebody is going to die because the door of the Jeep or door to the Humvee is no better than my CJ-7.
So I simply say it is an issue that I am pursuing, and I will continue to pursue, and I think it is really important. That is a huge morale factor, and that is an area where we have to be diligent in how we adjust to the combat situation.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Could I have General Pace respond to that?
General PACE. I won't repeat the numbers I have already spoken about, but I want to disabuse anyone of the notion that one type of unit, whether it be Guard or Reserves or whatever, is going to have preference. All the up-armored Humvees that are there now, the strap armor is going to remain in theater. As the Marines come in, as the Guard and Reserves come in, the commanders on the ground will allocate the resources to those units that are in greatest need of it. It will not be based on what flavor unit you come from.
Mr. SIMMONS. I appreciate that. The only reason I mention the differentiation between Guard and Reserve is, for example, the Connecticut National Guard has not a single up-armored Humvee in their inventory, even though they have several thousands people in country, to include military police (MP), who are essentially on the front line. So it gives an appearance, and it is a serious issue, and I appreciate you addressing it.
In looking at the data on the Reserves, I note that, on page 7, 56, 51 and 48 percent of civil affairs, military police and intelligence officers have been deployed. Those are substantial numbers. When you look at civil affairs and military intelligence (MI), in particular, these people come from academic backgrounds and business backgrounds in my unit—we had bank vice-presidents and people holding fairly substantial positions in their community. What happens is that people in this skill set are going to be deployed more than once; and even though they are patriotic and dedicated, their employers are going to say, you know, we can't afford to have them doing this. So the employers are going to limit their advancement within their job and this pressures them to get out, which is why rebalancing the force in this area is so critically important.
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My question is, I know we are rebalancing. Are we focusing enough so we can expand this group with quality people so that we can anticipate that some of those quality people who have already been deployed in this mission occupational specialty (MOS) are going to leave us not because they are not patriotic, but because it is degrading their success in their civilian lives?
Secretary RUMSFELD. You are absolutely right, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are rebalancing within the Reserve and Guard, so there will be more of those skills in short supply, but we are also rebalancing with the Active force and the Guard and Reserve so there will be more on the Active force and we will not have to call those people up as frequently. And they are doing a spectacular job.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for coming before us and in particular Mr. Secretary, first of all, for serving in this position, because it is not an easy thing to do.
Also want to tell you that, from my particular standpoint, you have an ally with respect to some of the transformation things you have been trying to do, even though there are a lot of people on this committee who really haven't appreciated that, as well as the base realignment and closure (BRAC) process, which I also believe is a necessity for our departments to move forward.
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On the other hand, you probably already know that I am not a very big fan of yours, in particular with respect to this war on Iraq and really the way this administration got us into it and the way it has handled it.
I think one of the reasons why we are still in this ball game is because we do have great young men and women out there on the ground in Iraq just doing a great and super job. I have had a chance to meet them in theater and really all over, and they really are a credit to the United States.
I wasn't going to say anything about WMD because I have not been one of those people who has been harping on that stuff, but since you have brought it up and since nobody has mentioned it back to you, I just want to—it would be remiss of me to allow you to spend WMD now, from the administration standpoint, without saying, you know, the doctrine of preemptive war that the President and you all used to invade Iraq in March really depended on an accurate assessment of the Nation's real and imminent threat from—for our security interests. And of course we now know that there was no nuclear capability and there is no WMD.
So I think, in particular, we need to remember that when we remember some of the words that the President and you all used 500 times—sarin and mustard gas comes to mind during the State of the Union address. I think we need to think about that. The American people need to understand that.
Because there seems to be a pattern, from my standpoint, of you all leading us down a path on information that is either made up or exaggerated or pulled from God knows where or connect the dots with really no correlation going on. I say all of that because now we have got this budget, and that is what we are talking about today, and we have this whole issue of end strength.
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Thanks for delineating what you think end strength is and your search of 30,000 Army personnel, but I know that my good colleague here, Mrs. Tauscher, is going to talk more about this. You know, she has this bill to increase end strength; and, as she knows, I haven't signed on that. I am a fiscal conservative. I am a strategist by training and economist by training, and I am not sure that we need to increase end strength for the long-run.
But I am sure of something now. We are going to be in Iraq a lot longer than you thought, than the President thought, than a lot of people on this committee thought. So we really need to give and think about what we need as far as our services go.
It is a little disconcerting, going back to Mr. Snyder, that this budget does not reflect what is really going on in the sense that you have not put in moneys for Iraq and Afghanistan. It is disconcerting because it doesn't give the real picture of what is going on.
You can't really have it both ways, in my opinion. I mean, you can't really say, oh, don't worry, it is going to be a walk in the park for us to go to Iraq and all these guys running around shooting their guns at us. They are just disgruntled criminals that Saddam let out the day before the war started.
No, no, we don't have a guerrilla war on our hands. You know this is a pattern. It comes from you. It comes from Wolfowitz. It comes from some of your generals. When generals say the right thing, like Shinseki, they are told that is wildly off the mark.
So the question is, talk to us about end strength. Tell me how is it that you are not putting the funds for these 30,000 people in the budget, but it is coming out of the Iraqi supplement? If it is going to be for four, five years—and why are you—I mean, because if you put it in the terms that you said about total force, that is under emergency circumstances.
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Why aren't you coming to us and putting your cards on the table? We don't have to put it to our enemies or do it in open session, but we need to have a good idea of what we really need and how we finance this. And America deserves to know how long, how much? Is it so unstable and so unpredictable that you can't give it to us or is it because you are afraid to give it to us before November because there is an election happening?
The CHAIRMAN. Let me remind the gentlelady that she has used all the time in her question, and we have quite a few members who want to ask questions. We are going to have votes in about 15 minutes.
Ms. SANCHEZ. It is an important issue for me and to all of us.
The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready for the Secretary to answer?
Ms. SANCHEZ. Yes.
Secretary RUMSFELD. You are kidding?
Ms. SANCHEZ. Do you need more elaboration, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Hardly.
I will repeat what I said earlier. The wars are generally funded in supplementals.
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Second, we tried to fund the Afghan war in the budget and were refused by the Congress. They zeroed it out. The budget is developed from January of 2003 to November of 2003. It is submitted to OMB and then to the Congress in January of 2004 to begin in October of 2004 and go 'till September of 2005.
That is a very long period. I am not going to add up the months, but it is anywhere from a year-and-a-half to two-and-a-half years eventually, from the beginning of the process to the end of it. That is the reason that they have tended to come to the Congress and say, here is what we know, and ask for the funds and then say, when we know precisely what we will need for the rest—for that year, we will come in with a supplemental and tell you precisely what it is.
The implication that someone is trying to hide something is plain false. We came in and we tried to do it and the Congress said, don't do it because you don't have enough clarity, you don't have enough granularity on how that money is going to be spent. Therefore, we are not going to give it to you, and we are accusing you of trying to get a blank check.
So you can't win with that kind of an argument. You can't have it both ways in life.
Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, I assume I don't have any rebuttal time left?
The CHAIRMAN. I would recommend an exchange of letters.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Maybe lunch would be better.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady from California.
I would remind all members of the committee, too, one thing we did before the Congress voted on the use of force in Iraq is to host classified hearings with our intelligence representatives. Any questions that people wanted to ask, they were able to ask. They had full access, and I believe every single Member of the Congress got a personal invitation from me to come to those hearings so they would make an informed vote on the decision to use force in Iraq. And I know the gentlelady got an invitation.
Ms. SANCHEZ. I went to them, Mr. Chairman; and that is why I voted no.
The CHAIRMAN. That opportunity was given to every single Member of Congress, and there was no Administration officials there attempting to categorize the information one way or another. I would——
I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Schrock.
Mr. SCHROCK. Frankly, I don't know how I top that, but I am not even sure I am going to try.
Secretary Rumsfeld and Dr. Zakheim and Dr. Chu and General Pace, thank you for being here and enduring us for two times today. I am aware of balancing the many competing priorities placed on your Department combined with rapidly changing challenges and commitments is quite a task, and I thank you for your dedication and service to all of us.
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As you may imagine, I try very hard to closely monitor the course of events in Iraq and the debates surrounding the choices we have made and must make in prosecuting the global war on terror. As your statement outlines, Mr. Secretary, we have had a very successful year, and I am confident we will continue to succeed.
My greatest single concern is the viability of the total force concept and the weaknesses that have been brought to light in the past two years. We have come to rely heavily on the Reserve Component to complement Active Duty forces to enable reasonable force rotations and allow us to meet other global commitments.
We are both aware of the large role that the Reserve components have played since September 11, 2001. In certain skill areas their operational tempos have been very high, and they have performed magnificently.
As you noted in your testimony, there is a need to balance the Reserve and Active forces to ensure that they have the proper mix of capabilities in both services. The continuum of service concept you outline in your testimony which will create a bridge between the Active and Reserve components is an excellent proposal.
Along those lines, I believe serious questions have presented themselves regarding suitability of the structure presently in place to allow us to quickly and seamlessly integrate the Reserve and Active Duty components. I am concerned that it is being overwhelmed by the events of the past two years and that this infrastructure, as designed, may never be up to the task of meeting such a high operational tempo.
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I am concerned that we are not making the investment of that infrastructure to preclude a great expense and hardship in future years. When I use the word ''infrastructure'' I refer not just to the equipment and training structures but also to the pay systems and personnel systems that allow the Department of Defense to call up and deploy reservists. The systems themselves and the training level of those operating them are not up to the task.
I understand the situation we find ourselves in is different than any we have seen before, and I understand that asymmetric threats do not always allow for neat plans and careful execution. I submit to you and my colleagues on this committee that we must not use this as an excuse to continually act in a rash and uncareful manner, but as a reason to capitalize on lessons learned, build more flexible systems and train to a higher standard.
The Government Reform Committee, on which I sit, recently held a hearing on pay problems experienced by National Guard soldiers deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Special Forces unit from the Colorado National Guard deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom was included in the several units of study. One hundred percent of the 62 soldiers in that unit experienced pay problems. Some of those soldiers lost their homes as a result of these problems, and many were forced to leave the National Guard and return to Iraq and Afghanistan as civilian contractors to relieve financial hardship.
Mr. SCHROCK. The report identified dozens of systemic shortcomings that resulted in similar problems in several other units.
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The most important thing to note is that many problems are the same as those made following the Gulf War in 1991. DOD witnesses stated that they expect to have this problem fixed in three years when a new integrated personnel system, Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS)-I am not sure how you pronounce it-comes on line. I consider this time line unacceptable, and continue to be amazed at how poorly DOD performs simple administrative functions, yet can so superbly place ordnance on target.
This is just one example that I choose to highlight that I believe to be a systemic shortcoming in the Defense Department's ability to operationalize the total force concept. There are many others which I do not have time to outline. They include massive equipment and training shortfalls, and the Guard and Reserve's lack of proper planning for mobilizing and demobilizing forces, and reservists being mobilized whose medical readiness clearly makes them unfit for duty. I consider our ability to integrate the Active and Reserve forces a critical readiness matter and the basis of the total force concept.
The performance of the pay, personnel, training and readiness evaluation systems that enable this integration is the critical metric with which to measure this capability. I believe that unless we devote serious attention to this in the short term, that it will prevent you from building the bridge between the Active and Reserve components which you have outlined and we so badly need.
And that being said, Mr. Secretary, my question is whether you feel the budget you have submitted to Congress does everything possible to address the multiple systemic problems of integrating the Reserves and the Active Duty components, and have you done everything to ensure that the total force concept will continue to be a pillar of our military capability?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I would like to have General Pace comment on your comments concerning equipment and Dr. Chu comment on your remarks concerning the personnel system. Thank you.
Mr. CHU. Let me start on that. First of all, I want to express my appreciation for your support on our continuing service proposals, and we indeed look forward to working with you and the committee to secure their enactment. They are very important, and for a strong Reserve and Guard community and for the Nation as a whole.
On the specific issue of pay, we recognize the pay system for the Reserves are inadequate. We inherited at the start of this team's work in 2001 a badly underfunded program. We have put that funding in place to deploy really the largest application of this software anyone has ever attempted. It actually is a rather complex problem to keep all those details straight because of the many different allowances people receive in their specific individual circumstances. We are really going to start pulling the first elements within the next year. The three-year window is the completion of that system. And this committee has been very helpful in sustaining our request for those monies. That really is the long-term attempt, is getting that put together correctly so that people do get paid correctly.
I know Dr. Zakheim and his team has been very energetic in looking into individual problems, although I recognize that that is the Band-Aid approach, and we are trying to get to a systemic solution.
General PACE. If I could, Mr. Schrock, I would like to sit down with you and just have a discussion, because I would like to learn more about the specifics of what you are citing. At the macro level, we believe we are, in fact, trying to spread and balance across the Reserve, the Guard, and the Active Force, and to ensure that each has like capability, and that they each are provided for the way all of our servicemembers should be provided for.
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Mr. SCHROCK. I would appreciate that. It breaks my heart when I hear some of the stories of young people losing their homes. And that is the case in several instances, and that is not a good thing.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Would you give us the information on several people who have lost their homes? I would like to see precisely, track it back and see what caused that kind of circumstance.
Mr. SCHROCK. Sure. Yes, sir. We will get the testimony from some of those that we heard in that particular Government Reform Committee hearing. I would love to do that.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Terrific. Thank you.
Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate the gentleman's question.
And the gentlelady from California, Mrs. Tauscher.
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here. And I, too, express my thanks for the service of our countrymen that are deployed around the world and how hard they are working.
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General Pace, I saw you at the Super Bowl. I only wish you had been the halftime show. A big improvement.
General PACE. Thank you, ma'am.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I am not sure you should say thank you.
Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, using the term force level against the term end strength isn't as simple as having you say tomato and me saying tomato. There are real net effects for your using the term force level, and I can understand why you don't like the term end strength. End strength would mean that you would have to have congressional authority to do what you want to do, and you would have to do it in the budget. Using force level basically allows you to use emergency powers and to use the supplemental to do what you want to do. And while I support many of the aspects of transformation, and I certainly support flexibility and adaptability, I think if you had chosen to come to us, this committee would have worked with you to have the opportunities to have the force structure and the force level and the end strength through congressional edict with as much flexibility as you wanted.
But I think right now what we are doing is we are ducking the opportunity to make hard choices in the Pentagon budget, because by using the term force level, not end strength, and by using emergency powers, you get to have a separate credit card for the Iraq war that includes coat-tailing many of the things that we need to do and have to do, including transformation and other things, on the Iraq supplemental.
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And it is this committee's purview—as a former Member, you know that—we are allies of yours in so many ways. And to effectively have General Schoomaker come here last week and drop a bomb on us that you have, by the way, been doing this, and that you are going to use emergency powers, and not come to us and use the powers of Congress appropriately and have us be partners with you to do this in a way—that forces us to ask some tough questions. You know, do we want to have $9 billion spent on national missile defense? Had the debate—if we had had debate, I will tell you, you are so persuasive, you might have won. Certainly with the numbers on the other side, I can probably guarantee you would have won.
But now we are not going to really have those debates because of the way you are doing this, and that causes a little cynicism, a little skepticism, and a lot of hard feelings. And my suggestion to you is, Mr. Secretary, that you understand that many of us are committed to the things that you are committed to, and certainly when it comes to our fighting men and women, and certainly when it comes to the ability for us to have the most ready, adaptable, flexible, lethal, light fighting force.
So I just have one simple question: Why are you funding the personnel increase through the supplemental, not in the budget?
Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, the first thing I would say is that, as a former Member of Congress, I would—at least my personal opinion is that the emergency powers, which were debated by Congress and passed by Congress, are congressional authorities. I would say, second, that supplementals, which are debated by Congress and passed by Congress, are congressional authorities. And your comment suggests that we bypass congressional authority. If you don't like being bypassed——
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Ms. TAUSCHER. You have bypassed this committee.
Secretary RUMSFELD. That is a matter of how the Congress organized itself. It can organize itself any way it wants. I assume the purpose of—I assume the purpose of passing emergency authorities and passing supplementals is because the Congress in its wisdom made a judgment that that is the way they wanted to do it. If they wanted this committee to review supplementals or to review how—the use of emergency powers, the Congress can do that. It is Article I of the Constitution.
Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, you understand, Mr. Secretary, that we are an authorizing committee, not an appropriating committee.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Of course I do.
Ms. TAUSCHER. And you know that the supplemental comes right around us, basically goes to the appropriations committees on both sides and goes to the floor. And so this committee——
Secretary RUMSFELD. But you said it was avoiding congressional authorizations. Some things don't go through this committee, just like some things don't go through the Appropriations Committee.
Ms. TAUSCHER. But you would have to admit, I would hope, that this is not some minor little triviality. This is a huge thing.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. It is a subject that this committee ought to hold hearings on, it ought to talk about it, it ought to bring everybody up and discuss it. We are for that.
Ms. TAUSCHER. But the decision has been made. You have gone off and done it.
Secretary RUMSFELD. We haven't gone off and done it. What we did was over the last two years we have been doing exactly what the congressional authorities asked us to do. Use the emergency—or the minute the President signed that, everyone in Congress knew that we had the ability to go above the 2 percent or 3 percent, whichever it is, flexibility. So we did. And everyone in Congress who wanted to know knew it. There was no surprise.
Ms. TAUSCHER. So then, let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, if this is only a spike, if this, as you have——
Secretary RUMSFELD. Which it may or may not be.
Ms. TAUSCHER. Which it may or may not be. But considering the fact that we can all be wrong, and we have had a bad record recently, isn't it true that it is a good idea to have a hedge on that spike? And why wouldn't we talk about then having that hedge be a temporary increase in end strength for five years?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Why do we need a temporary increase in end strength if you have got the emergency powers and you can increase force levels and move it where you need to during that period?
Ms. TAUSCHER. Because I believe that you need to pay for it in the budget; that you shouldn't have a separate account called the Iraq war in order to facilitate that. And that is effectively what you are going to be doing.
Secretary RUMSFELD. But Congress has decided it wants to fund the Iraq war through a supplemental. I haven't decided that; I prefer to do it the other way.
Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, I think perhaps at the time—I certainly don't recall making that decision, but perhaps somebody did. But I will tell you right now, I think if we ever thought about doing it that way now, I think everyone would say there is nothing—this is not a contingency, and this is not an emergency to the extent that we are not surprised about it. We are nowhere in it. We know we are going to be there for at least three or four more years. Funding it in the supplemental probably now is not the wisest of decisions.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I don't know that we are going to be there three or four more years. You may, but I don't.
Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, once again, I am willing to put a hedge on things if I am not sure, and I am not willing to find out in two years that this spike is actually a series of spikes that becomes a plateau, and we find ourselves in a situation where, oops, it wasn't a spike, and we are now funding personnel changes in supplementals that are harder and harder to pass and where we don't have congressional review through this committee, through the subcommittee on total forces.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. As far as I am concerned, you can have as many meetings as you want on any subcommittee. We will send people up here, we will go over it in minute detail, because this is important, this committee is critically important to the Department of Defense. And we are happy to do it.
The CHAIRMAN. Let me remind the gentlelady that we still have a number of Members who need to ask questions, and her time expired some time ago. And I just want to remind her, we do have our first hearing on this with General Schoomaker next Thursday, and we will start to work this issue. And, second, simply remind my colleagues that the proposal by General Schoomaker is to produce essentially out of the same force with an initial bump under the President's emergency power, but essentially out of the same force, an additional ten brigades, ten fighting brigades. That would take us from 33 to 43. So rather than seeing that as a bomb shell, as the gentlelady has described it, I think most of us welcomed it, if we can make this thing work, as a way to multiply force with the same end strength that we possess today.
So I just recommend to my colleagues that they attend this first briefing or first hearing with General Schoomaker and let us see what happens.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Members of the committee, let me take just a second and see if I can put this into context. Let us take it away from people and talk about bombs. You fight a war in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the Congress then says, we want you to replenish your stocks. We want to reconstitute your force.
Now, we have got a choice at that moment. We went into the war thinking we needed 50 percent dumb bombs and 50 percent smart bombs. In the war you find out you are using 90 percent smart bombs and about 10 percent dumb bombs because the smart bombs are so much smarter. Then it comes to the supplemental to reconstitute, just the normal reconstitution, and you decide what do you want to—which bin do you want to fill up? Do you want to fill them up, the old bins, using the old, quote, ''requirements,'' or do you want to fill up the bins you now have been informed by the war how you likely would fight? And you would not fight with dumb bombs, so you don't want to buy the dumb bombs; you want to fill up the precision bomb bins.
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The same thing is true with the people. The money is going to get spent for reconstitution on the force. We either are going to rebuild the old force, which General Schoomaker and the Army believe we shouldn't do, or we are going to rebuild a new force. And the money is going to be spent either way. That is what is going to happen in reconstitution, I think. And David Chu—well, you are not up there anymore. But is that roughly correct?
Mr. CHU. Absolutely, sir. That is correct.
I might also add just a word on this question of emergency powers, if I could. They are, of course, as the Secretary emphasizes, legislation that Congress passed. Indeed, they were revised to make them more usable after the attacks of September 11, 2001, by this committee in the fiscal year 2002 authorization act. And, indeed, as you recall, the committee further loosened even the peacetime limits on end strength in its actions most recently establishing the new two percent and three percent limits.
So the committee has been active in this area. We are using the powers it has granted us. We are eager to have the opportunity to tell the full story of what we would like to do here.
The CHAIRMAN. I expect to see my colleague at that hearing on Thursday.
Ms. TAUSCHER. I was here the other day, too.
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The CHAIRMAN. And I thank her for her brief question.
The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, General Pace, Secretaries, I want to thank all of you for your service. I want to thank you for your vision, for your courage to protect our country in the unprecedented war on terror. And I think you are making the right decisions, and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be here to back you up.
Additionally, I have some unique perspectives. This past year, I became a veteran after 31 years service with the Army Reserves and the Army National Guard. And so I am just so proud of our troops and the progress they have made.
I also have the perspective of being a Member of Congress. I want to thank Congressman Skelton for including me on the delegation to Iraq. I had the opportunity to see firsthand the progress being made there and the dedication of our troops.
Additionally, I have the perspective of being a parent. I have three children who are currently in the military, two in the Army National Guard. And I see the Marine here—I am sorry, the other is a Navy guy. And so I am really proud that we cover at least two services. And I am particularly grateful and proud that one of my sons is at Fort Stewart right now in training to be deployed to Iraq within the next two weeks. So we are very, very grateful.
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But with this perspective, I want to point out, Mr. Secretary, in particular that you are correct; that Guard and Reserve members are trained, they are enthusiastic, and they appreciate the opportunity to serve our country. And we knew when we signed on the line that this could occur, and we are proud to serve our country. And I have seen this in all of my activities around the world, of proud Guard and Reserve members.
And, General Pace, you have really answered a lot of questions that I had relative to the body armor, of armored Humvees. And I share the concern of Congressman Simmons, and I hope the actions will continue to protect our troops.
But, Secretary Rumsfeld, in regard to the balanced skill sets of the Guard and Reserve into the Active Army, can you be more specific on that?
Secretary RUMSFELD. I can. By way of example, we have been overusing those people who are in military police and civil affairs and underusing heavy artillery in the Guard and Reserves. So we have been—General Schoomaker is in the process of creating a better balance there.
The same thing is true with the Active versus the Reserve overall. We have had a number of skill sets which simply did not exist, or existed only one, two, three, four, five percent of the total skill set in the Active Force. So, then you get into a conflict. Immediately you have got to call up the Reserve. You can't even begin and do anything with the Active Force unless you have those skill sets that for whatever reason were kept completely out of the Active Force, or almost completely. So one example was port handlers. There just weren't any on Active Duty. That means that if you wanted to move something and open a port, you simply had to activate a Reserve unit, send it over in advance, have them be there to receive the first ship to arrive. There is a number of instances like that which all of the services are working their way through.
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Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. And a final question. In regard—I support the rationalization of infrastructure of BRAC, and I am really proud of the different facilities that I represent in South Carolina. What recommendations would you have to communities to prepare for BRAC?
Secretary RUMSFELD. I am speechless.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. As a former Member of Congress, I know you can answer this question.
Secretary RUMSFELD. BRAC came up long after I left the Congress. I really don't know. I must say, it bothers me. I am conservative when it comes to dollars, and it bothers me to see States and cities and counties and municipalities spending money hiring people to defend them. The process is a congressional process. The criteria are going to be fair. The people serving are going to be fair. The process will be transparent to the Congress, transparent to the press, and it will end at some point. And when it ends, hopefully the people will have made good decisions, and the Congress will have a chance to opine on those decisions. And it seems to me that if I—I think, if I were in their positions, I would be—not be spending a lot of money hiring promotional people, myself.
Now, that is right off the top of my head, and I have never been in that situation, so I really don't know what I would do if I were there.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And God bless our troops.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you so much.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.
My seatmate from California, Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Secretary Rumsfeld, Dr. Chu, General Pace. Thank you very much for being here. Dr. Zakheim. I appreciate that. Appreciate your dedication and your work.
First, Mr. Secretary, I wanted to commend you on your creativity in increasing the shipbuilding budget. I can assure you that we appreciate that in San Diego and will do a good job by that. But I also wanted to talk about your priorities and the $400 billion defense budget as they relate to the quality of life in force protection.
As you know, missile defense is up some 20 percent in the budget, as I understand it, yet military construction and family housing suffered double-digit percentage cuts. We know that for our military-they probably are at greater threat from short-range ballistic missiles, and our Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC–3) system, which defends against that, is cut 30 percent, again, as opposed to the large percentage increase for missile defense.
Could you share with me how those priorities came about, whether they have the support of the joint chiefs, and how those decisions really were made?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I am trying to get the data here from Dr. Zakheim. But the idea that family housing has been cut in double digits can't be true. When we came here three years ago, I don't know if you have the facts, but the recapitalization of the housing was at something like 197 years. Fifty or sixty or seventy years is about normal in the private sector. We have driven that number down not to 50 or 60 or 70 years, but we have driven it down, I believe, to something like 109, if my memory serves me correctly, years— 107—I misspoke—in years for recapitalization.
Second, the family housing budget in 2004 was $3.8 billion. In 2005 it is $4.2 billion. And not only is it not down double digits, it is up; and not only is it up, the money is buying a heck of a lot more because we are using private financing, and we are getting many more units per dollar expended. And I don't have that, the leverage that is provided by using private money, but it is $8 to $10 per dollar of investment. So it is much—the value in terms of housing that is being created is dramatically above where it was 3 years ago, and we have pulled that recapitalization rate down significantly.
General PACE. If I might add one point on housing, ma'am, and that is that for those who do not live in housing on base, thanks to several years in increases in housing allowance, this last budget, this 2005 budget will, in fact, zero out any out-of-pocket expense for the servicemember. So if he or she is not living on base, he will have adequate money in his pocket to go rent or buy in the local economy.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Sir, I appreciate that. And in some housing communities that is difficult to come by, and, in fact, we still think that there are dollars coming out of our members who are serving, out of their pocket. The numbers I have would indicate that there is a cut. But I guess if you could juxtapose this against the 20 percent increases in missile defense, I mean, how do we justify that? How do we justify that there is a decrease in PAC-3, which I think would be a greater need for our military today?
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Secretary RUMSFELD. It is possible for anyone to take any piece of a $400 billion budget and say this is down and that is up, why is that. And how do you compare apples and oranges? How do you compare family housing against a ballistic missile or against a research and development? There is no way to answer your question, obviously. But I am unhappy that we don't have the family housing down to a 67-year recapitalization rate, and it won't be down there, if my memory serves me correct, until about 2008, I think, 2008 or 2009. And it is because it started at 197 years 3 years ago. And I wasn't here, so I can't tell you why the Department of Defense and this committee decided to do that, to allow the recapitalization rate to float up to 197 years. But we are pulling it down. It is down to 107 or 108 or 109, and it is heading down towards 67 by 2008.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I think the reason that we try and make some sense out of that is that we have to face our sailors back in our district who know that there has been a proposal for barracks for how many years, and they don't see any changes in that regard. And so I think to the extent that we can—I understand that it may not be apples and oranges, but I think what are the real needs that we have today for force protection? We know that family housing or other housing makes a difference for the quality of life of our sailors, and we need to be able to present that to them in a way that is reasonable. And when you see these increases, it makes it difficult to do that.
The rest of my questions really have to do with the consensus among the Joint Chiefs and whether or not we get that kind of buy-in on these issues and whether or not they perhaps would change that allocation.
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Secretary RUMSFELD. Sure. General Pace is the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he can certainly respond.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.
General PACE. Ma'am, myself and the other Joint Chiefs have all been involved in this. I am part of the budget process, along with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. The service chiefs in their service hats work with their service Secretaries, and then they come into the tank as Joint Chiefs and vote on it again. So we have had multiple opportunities to look at this.
And one of the main quality of life items is ensuring that our servicemembers come home alive. And as we look at this budget, it provides a very good balance, at least in my view, between the kinds of quality of life that you look at as far as housing and the like and the quality of life that gives us the ability on the battlefield to do what we need to do and survive that battle and come home and live in that new housing.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And could you just comment on the missile defense versus the PAC-3 system? Is that a fair comparison?
General PACE. I don't know the numbers you are looking at, ma'am. I do know that there is a need. We agree that there is a need for a capability of this Nation to defend itself from rogue nations' shots. This budget, if approved, will, in fact, provide for that. I think that having a small capability in that regard may very well be the difference between a disaster on the West Coast of the United States and not.
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So it is hard to judge apples and oranges, and when you slice $400 billion, which is a huge amount of money, some things don't get as much as you would like, but in balance I think it is a very, very good budget.
Secretary ZAKHEIM. Could I just add that particularly with PAC-3, which is not a new program, we have been buying these missiles for some time. And so, for instance, in fiscal year 2004, we are buying 135 of them. We are buying over 100—I think it is 108 in fiscal year 2005. It is an ongoing program. And when we get the requirement from the Army, and you know the Army is now in charge of that, we do our best to fund it. So I think we are in sync with the Army requirement.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.
The Ranking Member is recognized, and then we will go to Mr. Kline.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit for the record a statement by Ms. Sanchez and a letter to the Secretary from Ms. Bordallo.
The CHAIRMAN. We have already got that exchange of letters going. Without objection.
And the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Kline.
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Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I greatly applaud the exchange of letters program.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary and General and others, for being here today. And thank you for your extraordinary patience with us and your perseverance. And thank you—I am speaking to the uniform here, General Pace, for the service of the men and women in uniform here and abroad. I am so proud of them. I am proud of my own son who wears an Army uniform-I am proud of him anyway-for doing a terrific job, and all of them are just doing so well. And I know, General Pace, when you and I were much, much younger, we thought that we were the best, and we served with the best. And I know you would agree with me that the men and women in the Armed Forces today and the quality of our Armed Forces today is so much better than those years ago. So, again, thank you for that.
I have many, many questions and no doubt several speeches to make. I will skip most of those and just say that I am very concerned about the employment of the Guard and Reserve. And I am very interested in the language that talks about a continuum of service, and I have many questions about how that will work, how that will affect pay and benefits for the Active Forces and for the Reserve, and how that will impact both of those components. I am looking forward to working with Dr. Chu and his folks, and hope that someone from your office, sir, will be in touch with us.
Let me just cut to a fundamental question here. If we had—we are looking right now at the percentage of Reserve Component in the theater, I understand, of around 40 percent, and it will be around 40 percent at the end of the redeployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Can you give me some idea of what the percent of Reserve Component would be in theater at the end of, say, the next redeployment, Operation Iraqi Freedom III and IV?
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And more to the point, my real question is, when we complete the transformation that General Schoomaker has in mind, and the shifts in capabilities in the Reserves, and the addition of the extra brigade to the divisions and all those things, can you give me an idea of what that percentage of Reserve Component would be? In other words, are we moving in these efforts to reduce our reliance on the Reserve Component or not? Thank you.
General PACE. Sir, the short answer to your last question is, yes, sir. To go back. The current mix in Iraq is 78 percent Active, 22 percent Reserve. When we get done with this rotation between now and the April-May time frame, when that all turns out, it will be then 63 percent Active, 37 percent Reserve.
As we sit here today—literally, as we sit here today, across the river in the Pentagon is a group of officers sitting down looking at if we have to have a rotation Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) III; and if it is larger, if it is the same size, if it is smaller, how would we do that to come forward to the Secretary?
So I am not able to sit here today, sir, and tell you specifically what kind of a mix it would be.
Mr. KLINE. Thank you very much.
I guess let me press the question just a little bit. In looking at those mixes, is the percent of or degree of dependency on the Reserves, is that a consideration, and is it near the top, or are you strictly looking at capability, and whether they are Active or Reserve doesn't matter?
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General PACE. I will try to answer, sir; and if I don't get the tone right, you will ask it again.
Mr. KLINE. I will try not to.
General PACE. We are looking to see what kind of capabilities we need. We know for a fact that we are relying too heavily on the Guard and Reserve for combat support, combat service support, and things like civil affairs and the like. So we know that, and that is part one of what we are trying to do to rebalance the force.
In the meantime, we need to fight the war that is going on, and we are trying as we do so to first resource whatever capability is needed with an Active unit. And if we are not able to resource it with an Active unit, then go to the Reserves.
Mr. KLINE. Thank you. That exactly answers. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Ryan. And, folks, we have got three votes coming up, but it is the intent of the Chair to continue until we are finished here.
Mr. RYAN OF OHIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for coming. It has been a long meeting. I got to sneak out, but you didn't. But I was here in time to hear the question on the BRAC committee, and I do have an air base in my district next to Warren, Ohio, which is your old home. And you could save us a lot of money if you would just come and visit it yourself, and that way the state wouldn't have to fund a couple hundred thousand dollars.
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But what I wanted to talk to you about today was a situation with a company in Niles, Ohio, and an industry that Chairman Hunter has been working with me on with the Berry amendment.
A couple of the issues. One, as I am sure you are familiar with, the Berry amendment provides these waivers for companies who can't seem to comply. One of the industries is the titanium industry, and the Air Force has been frequently purchasing their titanium from a Russian company. There are only about three United States companies left. And I wonder if you could just explain for a minute or two on what these waiver decisions are based on and getting the titanium from a company in Russia that doesn't have the same environmental laws, labor laws as we do in this country.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I am afraid I am going to have to get an answer for the record on that. I simply don't know.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. RYAN OF OHIO. Okay. Let me just make a point then, and we can have a discussion maybe after. One of the things that happens with the waivers that we tried to get in the last appropriations bill, which I thought was important, I think, for the industry, certainly the titanium industry, also the tire industry, is to—as the waiver is granted for whatever reason, is to put some of the other companies on notice and let them know as to why the waiver is being granted for the other company and allow them an opportunity, the other company an opportunity, to say, hey, wait a minute, we can comply with Berry right now without you having to grant a waiver for another company. And one of the provisions that we tried to get in-it didn't end up making it in-was to say, give the other company 14 days, put them on notice, and allow them to compete fairly with these other companies, some of which are located outside the United States.
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So you are welcome to make a comment on that, but I think it is very important as we see the erosion of the industrial base in this country, is for the Department of Defense and the President of the United States and the Congress to really make this a priority for those places like Youngstown, Ohio, that need the kind of business, which also, I think, fills the need to have the base level of the defense industrial base.
Secretary RUMSFELD. If my memory serves me correctly, you are correct that Chairman Hunter did work on this and did talk to me about it, and that it ended up being an issue that is not Department of Defense-oriented exclusively. It involves the Commerce Department and the Special Trade Representative and the Office of Management and Budget. Is that the one we talked about?
Mr. RYAN OF OHIO. That was a part of the package of the industrial base initiatives. And I think what we are talking about here is a piece of this, but the idea was to have, before a waiver is exercised under Berry that allows you to go offshore, to give a notice to the domestic company and give them a chance to prove that they have got the capability. Not a bad idea, and something I think we would ask you to consider, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary RUMSFELD. We will be happy to get back to you with a response.
Mr. RYAN. That would be great. And if it isn't under your jurisdiction, maybe you could help us with some of these other departments.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman for his question.
And the gentlelady from Michigan who just returned from Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief, as we are running for a vote here.
But certainly, Mr. Secretary, General, and others, we appreciate your service and your willingness to be here this morning.
As the Chairman mentioned, I did have a rather interesting week last week. We were in Libya, the first congressional delegation, I think, in 38 years to meet with Khadafi; certainly the first time a military aircraft from the United States has been in Tripoli in about that same time frame, as well. And I think that there was some question or some comment a little bit earlier by some of the other Members about perhaps the preemptiveness, the Bush document is not working. If you think about what is going on in Libya, voluntarily opening up its borders to allow the International Atomic Energy Commission to come in and disarm his nuclear program, I can't speak for what the thought process is there, but certainly I think watching a fellow like Saddam Hussein get drug out of a rat hole had to have some impact on some of the decisionmaking there.
So I think that what is the remarkable work that we are doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan is the reaching far beyond the borders of those two nations, as well, and that we are at a pivotal moment in history and successfully prosecuting the war on terror. What is happening in those two theaters is, as I say, having a huge impact.
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This is just something we can talk about at another time, but I do want to make this comment, as well. It was my observation as I had an opportunity in Iraq to talk to, whether it was General Sanchez or General Ordierno, what have you, one of the—a common theme that I heard, a problem that they have is that we don't have enough linguists there. And as our troops are out on patrol, as our troops are trying to have these town hall meetings, as they are perhaps questioning some of the women, with the cultural differences that we have, not having the availability of linguists is a problem for our troops there.
I live in southeastern Michigan where we have the largest Arabic population in the Nation, and I must say, since I have been back, already I have talked to a number of the leaders in the Iraqi community in southeastern Michigan who want to help in some format. And I am not quite sure what the path is to this, but there are plenty of Iraqi Americans that I think could exercise their ability to help us in some format, sort of our own Peace Corps perhaps there, maybe the Iraqi American Democracy Corps. They are wanting to volunteer to assist. We do have that availability, the willingness—not quite sure how we put all that together, but I would like to work with you on that, Mr. Secretary, if we could.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, thank you very much. I quite agree with you that the activity in Libya is clearly a result of the things that are happening in the world, and that government made the right decision, and one would hope that other governments will, going down as we go forward.
You are also correct, of course, that we have a problem with linguists. Part of the problem is linguists; another part of the problem is security clearances, which take time and are very difficult. One way that the linguist problem is being met by the forces is by having joint patrols with Iraqi police, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, Iraqi Army, and that helps a lot, and they find that they are each more effective by working with each other.
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Certainly there ought to be some way we can find the willingness of these volunteers in Michigan, Chicago, and elsewhere across the country to have them help. We have got millions of documents that need to be translated. We have got all kinds of situations where linguists are needed. And I would be happy to have Dr. Chu, who has been involved with this, respond more fully and work with you in the future.
Mr. CHU. We will come meet with you, ma'am.
Let me point to one opportunity. The Army has pioneered a program for Individual Ready Reserve appointments for exactly this kind of community. In fact, the first 20 or 30 will deploy in about a month. We have signed up well over 150 people so far, and so we would be eager to get more names from you.
Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Very well. Thank you, gentlemen, so much.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Secretary and General Pace, thank you very much for being here and for what you do for our Nation and what the folks you lead do for our Nation.
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A couple quick questions. BRAC-I have heard you say that it is going to be 25 percent of capacity. Is that 25 percent of capacity per service or of total capacity?
Secretary RUMSFELD. No. First of all, I don't know. Second, the number that I have heard is 20 to 23 percent to 25 percent. It is a rough guess. And——
Mr. TAYLOR. Particularly rough on the communities that lose their base.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, there it is 100 percent. That is always the way it is in life. But we won't know the answer to that until the BRAC process is over and people have had a chance to look at it and make a judgment. I would guess that number is lower today because of the forces we are bringing back from overseas. And I am just guessing, but that is my best guess.
And, second, you are absolutely right. Not only does it not run to a single service, it doesn't run to a single category like air base or service base or training area. It is just an aggregate gross guess.
Mr. TAYLOR. A couple other things. I happen to be particularly concerned, just as I have mentioned to you before, about the effect of improvised explosive devices and the number of casualties they cause; that General Sanchez thought that, off the top of his head, over half of our casualties were as a result of improvised explosives. I am told that someone who is smart enough to put a starter on his car, which isn't great technical skill, can learn to rig up one of these improvised explosives in about a day using a cell phone or whatever. It is my understanding that the cell system is getting ready to come back up in Iraq, and that would potentially have nine million people walking around with a trigger in their pocket for improvised explosives.
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If the case was made to you by one of our military commanders that that needs to be delayed for the purpose of protecting the lives of our troops, I am curious what your response would be.
The second thing is, I have seen where you are now, budgeting about $10 billion for national missile defense.
Secretary RUMSFELD. National fiscal what?
Mr. TAYLOR. National missile defense. We have not lost an American to an intercontinental missile yet, and yet we have lost approximately 250 young Americans to improvised explosives. My question is, what have you budgeted towards solving this problem to the greatest extent possible through technology of improvised explosives for this coming year?
Secretary RUMSFELD. The first thing I would say is, of course, if a case were made that the cell phone—deployment of cell phones could contribute significantly in ways that we weren't able to counter the risks of IEOs, we would have to surface that up and balance the risks and make a judgment on it.
Mr. TAYLOR. It is my understanding, Mr. Secretary, that decision is going to have to be made pretty soon.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I will look into it.
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Mr. TAYLOR. I am thinking even within the next 60 days, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary RUMSFELD. And I would like Pete Pace to comment on the other aspect of the IEO.
General PACE. Sir, I sit on a committee, along with others at this table plus many in the building, with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, who is running a force protection committee, and he has identified, with the help of the scientific community, about $700 million in force protection initiatives. About 600 million give or take Congress has already seen and approved expenditure to get these things on a fast track. We have got the scientific community working this, we have got industry working it. We are taking the lessons learned not only from the standpoint of what can we do technologically, but what can we do tactics, techniques, and procedures to train our soldiers to be able to understand the environment in which they are operating, to stay away from specific areas and the like. But we are putting as much brain power in this as we can, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. General Pace, I would hope and ask that every single soldier—in follow-up to what Mr. Simmons said—every single soldier, airman, Marine, coastguardsman who is over there, that we set the goal of providing for them the same level of protection that I had when I went to visit, the Chairman had when he went to visit, and, quite frankly, when the Secretary goes there to visit. If it comes down to $10,000 per vehicle, it is chump change for the life of a young Marine. That is absolutely nothing. And the goal of protecting only so many vehicles, I think, is very much akin to the mistake we, our Nation, made with not giving every single soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine the best body armor when they went in in the first place.
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General PACE. Sir, thank you. It is clear to me that if we identify it, that it will get funded. And I don't want to sound like we are talking statistics, because we are not, because each death is very important, but there are parts of this job—some things can be done with people inside of tanks, some things can be done inside a Bradley, some can be done from inside of up-armored Humvees. But some of this work requires Marines, soldiers walking the streets with the people, and there is an element of risk there. That doesn't mean that what they are doing and their individual safety is not important, but there is an element of risk to doing the kinds of things you need to do to provide the local security for the people so that they get the comfort to know that there is something there inside their society that is going to allow them to have a better life. And it will be them bringing forward, as they are beginning to do more and more, the IEO bombmakers and turning them in that will actually turn the table on us. Technology won't do it. It will help, but it will take the human intelligence on the ground and the will of the Iraqi people to turn this thing around.
The CHAIRMAN. General Pace, I know one thing——
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
One thing Mr. Taylor was referring to is countermeasures that we are taking. We had a classified briefing on it today, and there are certain increases that could be forthcoming. We need to talk to you about that. We will talk to you off the record on that. So I invite Mr. Taylor to participate in that.
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Well, Mr. Secretary, I am up here with my friends. Thank you for this important hearing. Let me just say a couple things as we sign off here, Mr. Secretary.
I understand that the tanker deal is at this point going to be held in abeyance. I just want to let you know that this committee undertaking the classified briefings that you recommended on the two-war scenario and the particular major conflicts reflected to us that we need tankers, because that is one of the enablers, along with the precision munitions, lift, theater missile defense, the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) that needs to be bolstered. And it is this—it is at least my intent to move forward, moving aside the politics and the personalities of the day with respect to the so-called tanker deal, to work to make sure that we do, in fact, acquire sufficient tankers to deliver American airpower when and where we need it.
So we are going to work with you on that. We are also going to undertake our own initiatives. But we think that should—the national requirement should be something that is separate from this squabble and controversy that has been part and parcel of the so-called tanker deal. So I haven't seen any facts that say that we need—that show that we need fewer tankers than we did when we got those briefings that led this committee, before there was a tanker initiative, to put extra money in for it.
Last, Mr. Secretary, you talked about the weapons of mass destruction. That was an item of interest today. I think it is important for everybody who wears a uniform, who has carried or followed the flag of the United States in theater in Iraq to know that what they have done in turning out Saddam Hussein and liberating that country was right. And I think that the best evidence of mass destruction from my perspective are the thousands of bodies of Kurdish mothers with their babies killed by poisoned gas spread across those hillsides, a site which to me was every bit as compelling as the pictures of Dachau and Auschwitz.
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Second, the revelations that we have seen, the film of people being pushed off buildings, the people being executed, the hundreds now of mass graves that are being turned up in Iraq all say one thing, and that is that what we did was right, and that the moral purpose of the people wearing the uniform of the United States was right; and that this debate that is now taking place over whether or not our intelligence was perfectly accurate does not go to that point that we have undertaken and are finishing an enormous task for humanity; that we are doing the right thing by the United States of America with respect to our security and with respect to the freedom of the Iraqi people.
So I think it is important that we keep making that point, and that we don't allow the people that wear the uniform of the United States to feel that somehow the United States or the people of the U.S. do not back them and back their purpose.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Chairman, I must say I agree completely with what you have said. It is—they are doing a superb job. It is important for them to know that what they are doing is important, it was right, and the world is a far safer place today for what they have done.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you for your work today. Thank you for doing this double duty. And we invite you back here any time, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary RUMSFELD. I hope you will—I am still confused and unclear as to why people are surprised we have been increasing force levels when the Congress authorized us to do it; they gave us the emergency power, they gave us the supplemental to do it. We have been doing it for two years. It ought not to be a surprise.
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The CHAIRMAN. Well, when General Schoomaker says he can produce ten brigades for us out of basically the existing force, I think that is good news, not bad news.
Secretary RUMSFELD. You bet it is.
The CHAIRMAN. So we look forward to working with you on it.
Secretary RUMSFELD. Terrific.
The CHAIRMAN. And, General Pace, again, thank you for being with us. Please convey our best to General Myers.
General PACE. I will, sir. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]