SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS    
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87–332
2003
  
[H.A.S.C. No. 108–2]

HEARINGS

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004—H.R. 1588

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION
FULL COMMITTEE HEARINGS
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ON
AUTHORIZATION AND OVERSIGHT

HEARINGS HELD
FEBRUARY 5, 2003

  
  

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
2003

HEARING:

    Wednesday, February 5, 2003, Fiscal Year 2004 National Defense Authorization Act—Defense Budget Request

APPENDIX:

    Wednesday, February 5, 2003

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2003

FISCAL YEAR 2004, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—DEFENSE BUDGET REQUEST

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

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    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

    Myers, Gen. Richard, USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

    Rumsfeld, Hon. Donald H., Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense

APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements can be viewed in the hard copy.]

Hunter, Hon. Duncan

Myers, Gen. Richard

Rumsfeld, Hon. Donald H.

Skelton, Hon. Ike

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
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[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]

Mr. Abercrombie
Mr. Bartlett
Ms. Davis
Mr. McKeon
Mr. Miller
Mr. Reyes
Mrs. Tauscher

FISCAL YEAR 2004, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—DEFENSE BUDGET REQUEST

House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 5, 2003.

    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2 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
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    The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

    Today the committee meets to receive testimony on the administration's defense budget request for fiscal year 2004. And it is a pleasure to welcome back Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, General Myers and Dr. Zakheim.

    We have got a lot of ground to cover today. With our slightly enlarged complement of 61 members, I want to make sure that we reserve as much time as possible for individual members to engage the witnesses.

    And, Mr. Secretary, this is the third time you have appeared before the committee to present a Bush administration budget proposal, but I believe it is fair to say that this may be the first budget that fully reflects the priorities of the administration across the board.

    We will spend the better part over the next several months reviewing and debating these priorities, and through this process look forward to arriving at a common view on the best approach to provide the strongest possible defense for the Nation.

    This said, Mr. Secretary, the defense program being put forward presents many of us who have long worked in the trenches for a strong defense with a series of dilemmas.

    First, you deserve tremendous credit for sharply reversing a decade-long decline in defense spending that characterized the previous administration. And I just added the numbers up, and this budget is some $94 billion above the last budget of the prior administration—94 billion.
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    However, the defense budget hole that was carved out during the 1990s will take more than two years' worth of significant increases to reverse. Thus, I am concerned with the modest four percent increase proposed for this year and beyond, and I am worried that we are somehow calling it quits before the job is done. We need to sustain significant defense budget increases for at least a few more years in order to buy back a decade of systemic damage and disinvestment across the defense program.

    Only then can we afford to flatten out the defense investment curve over the long haul. And I am sure, Mr. Secretary, you are well aware of the aging fleets of aircraft, the two-thirds of our naval aircraft that are over 15 years old, the 18- 1/2-year-old average age of Army helicopters, and down the line.

    Notwithstanding marginal increases in the key modernization accounts, we are still lagging far behind what we believe is necessary to support a modern, sustainable and sufficient combat force over the long-term. The proposed $72 billion for procurement that is reflected in this budget falls short of what has been broadly identified as a necessary level of reinvestment to sustain the current force. I know you are aware of the CBO analysis that says that 90-billion-plus was the right number, and the Joint Chiefs have said we need to do something in excess of $100 billion per year to sustain the current force.

    Further, the proposed budget recommends retiring or canceling programs in virtually every key combat category to carve out the resources, to reinvest in transformational future systems.

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    I have never been one to argue that we should not cancel or retire systems that have truly outlived their useful life or purpose, but starting with the Air Force decision to retire a third of the B–1 bomber fleet, we continue to cut into the very foundation of our conventional combat power solely to free up funds for other needed initiatives.

    Simply put, Mr. Secretary, we should not be forced to incur such near-term risks in terms of diminished combat capability in order to invest in the future solely because we have not properly resourced the defense budget.

    Final point: The Department will soon approach the halfway point for the current fiscal year and still has received no additional resources for the billions of dollars in costs associated with the ongoing war on terrorism, homeland security support, and generally increased pace of operations since September 11th.

    This committee has over the years seen the lasting damage done when the Department was asked to pay for significant military operations out of hide, with the promise of being made whole some later time in the year. We know that once the services start canceling or deferring key maintenance and training activities to pay these bills, you never make up the lost opportunities, and it invariably results in a downward spiral in overall readiness.

    I realize I am preaching to the choir a bit here, but given the enormity of the bills the Department faces during this current year, it is important to stress the point once again that early action should be taken to replenish operational accounts as soon as possible and thus avoid the familiar negative effects of operating in this manner.

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    Mr. Secretary, I look forward to your testimony today and trust you will fully address these concerns in your presentation and through the continuing dialogue that you will sustain with the committee as this process moves forward.

    And let me just say, Mr. Secretary, on a personal level, I want you to know that I feel that we could not be better represented, better led in the Department of Defense. Your challenges are enormous, you have got a great Armed Services Committee that wants to work with you to make our military more effective.

    This Nation has been called in a very difficult time, the armed forces of this Nation have been called to serve their country in difficult circumstances. And believe me, every member of this committee is willing to put their shoulder to the wheel to work together with you as a team. There has never been a time in which it is more important for us to move forward from our shores in implementing American foreign policy under our commander in chief, speaking with one voice, and giving you the tools that you need to get the job done.

    So we have great faith in you. You have got a difficult challenge ahead of you. We will work with you.

    And with those remarks, I would like to turn to my great friend, the gentleman from Missouri, who is our partner and your partner in defending this country, Mr. Skelton.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be viewed in the hard copy.]

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STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

    Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

    At the outset, let me say to everyone here that I am truly honored to have the opportunity to work with my good friend, my colleague through the years, Duncan Hunter, in this the 108th Congress. And I congratulate you on being our chairman.

    Secretary Rumsfeld, General Myers, Dr. Zakheim, thank you so much for being with us. As we all know, we meet at a dangerous time. Secretary Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council this morning was sobering, and it demonstrates the need to disarm Iraq. I commend the administration for working within the Security Council to urge you, and I urge you to continue to do so.

    We must act militarily. If so, it is better to fight under a Security Council sanction and with the broadest coalition possible.

    Now, at the same time, we face a deepening crisis on the Korean Peninsula and continuing operations around the world in the war on terrorism. Our Nation is unique in its global leadership, and that leadership means being able to handle multiple conflicts simultaneously. The administration's national military strategy acknowledges this reality, and our planning and budgeting must also.

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    I applaud the overall spending level for defense that has been put forward. This is much like—much like, in the budget, including continued pay raises for our troops who are now deployed more than ever—the investment of nearly $25 billion in transformational technologies and weapons programs and the purchase of seven new ships. But our global leadership role in a time of multiple crises raises, as you know, questions as well.

    First, the Department's funding request of $380 billion does not include the cost of operations; Duncan Hunter has already mentioned this. We need to pay attention to it. I know how difficult it is to estimate what future operations will cost, but Congress can use your best estimate as to what the full defense bill might be for the fiscal year 2004.

    Second, global leadership means global presence. The visibility of our troops and our ships around the world both reassures our friends and deters our adversaries. I am pleased with the shipbuilding plan in this budget. Decommissionings will bring the naval fleet size down to 291 by fiscal year 2006, a level we haven't hit since 1916. Now, I know that our ships have far greater capabilities now, but the geography of the ocean is unchanged. There is a great deal to be said about the presence of a sailor walking down the street in another country.

    And last, I return to the theme of end strength. Our global operations and the looming threats in Iraq and North Korea are putting a great strain on our troops. The increase in Special Operations forces may well come from existing Army billets. Clearly, we need more Special Operations troops, but these should come from end-strength increases, not by cannibalizing the Army forces.

    Now, Mr. Secretary, I congratulate you on the work that you have done. I know that you will continue to do the high level, difficult, challenging work that is ahead of you. And I want you to know that we all stand ready to work with you on all of these priorities.
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    And making trade-offs in a time of war is very, very difficult, even with a defense budget that is increasing in size. So I congratulate you for your fine efforts, and we look forward to working with you, shoulder to shoulder.

    Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be viewed in the hard copy.]

    The CHAIRMAN. General Myers, Mr. Zakheim, and, Secretary Rumsfeld, thank you for being with us.

    And Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Skelton. I have submitted a much longer statement, Mr. Chairman, and I would appreciate it if it be put in the record.

    The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be put in the record.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we thank you for this opportunity to update the committee on our progress in transforming the Department of Defense, and to discuss the President's budget for fiscal year 2004 to 2009.
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    I particularly appreciate having the session in the afternoon so so many of us could watch the excellent and powerful presentation by Secretary Powell at the United Nations this morning.

    In response to your comment, Mr. Chairman, let me just say a word or two. First, I fully agree that it would have been preferable had we had our full budget approved last year. And I appreciate the efforts of this committee to see that that could happen. But, unfortunately, it was not the case.

    Second, with respect to the size of the budget, we are certainly engaged in a war on terror and an effort to protect America and our allies in a time when dictators are trying to get weapons of mass destruction. And the more we learn, the more we realize how large and demanding these challenges are proving to be.

    The 2004 numbers represent our best estimate at the time the budget was developed. It may well change over the coming period as we learn more about the demands of safety on a worldwide basis. There is no doubt in my mind, for example, that we will be back with a supplemental, and reasonably soon, to fund the Global War On Terrorism as well as the costs of flowing forces in connection with support to the diplomacy in Iraq.

    We also have under way intense efforts to transform the Department and streamline and modernize to save the taxpayers money. As those efforts succeed, we ought to be able to shift some of those resources towards more urgent and more productive uses.

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    President Bush vowed on taking office that he would order an immediate comprehensive review of our military. He said that he would give his team at the Department a broad mandate to challenge the status quo and envision a new architecture of American defense for the decade to come.

    For the past two years, we have pursued the goals that he set out. We have fashioned a new defense strategy, a new approach to sizing our forces, a new approach to balancing risks. We have reorganized the Department somewhat to better focus on space activities. We have adopted a new unified command plan which establishes the new Northern Command to better defend the homeland, a Joint Forces Command that focuses on transformation, a new Strategic Command responsible for early warning of and defense against missile attack and the conduct of long-range attacks.

    We have expanded the mission of Special Operations Command so that it cannot only support missions that are directed by regional combatant commanders, but also plan and execute its own missions in pursuit of the Global War On Terror.

    We have reorganized and revitalized the missile defense research development and testing program, and are freed from the constraints of the ABM Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. We have completed the nuclear posture review with a new approach to deterrence that will enhance our security while permitting truly historic deep reductions in offensive nuclear weapons.

    We have moved from a threat-based to a capabilities-based approach to defense planning, focusing not only on who might threaten us, or where or when, and more on how we might be threatened and what portfolio of capabilities this country will need to deter and defend against those new threats.
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    These are critically important accomplishments. In my view, they will benefit our national security for many, many years to come. But as important as these changes are, they must be only the beginning.

    To win the Global War On Terror, our Armed Forces need to be flexible, light and agile, so that they can respond quickly to sudden changes in the world. The same is true of the men and women who support them in the Department, who also need to be flexible and agile so that we can move money and shift people, and design and buy new weapons more quickly and respond to the frequent, sudden changes in our security environment.

    Today, we do not have that kind of agility. In an age when terrorists move information at the speed of an e-mail, money at the speed of a wire transfer, and people at the speed of a commercial jetliner, the Defense Department, I regret to say, is still bogged down in bureaucratic processes of the Industrial Age, not the Information Age.

    Some of these difficulties are self-imposed, to be sure, but some are the result of law and regulation. Together, they have created a culture that too often stifles innovation. Consider just a few of the obstacles we face each day. Think of this 2004 budget as we consider it today.

    It was developed by the Department of Defense from March to December of last year. That was the setting in which this budget was developed. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) considered it from December to February, when the President presented it to the Congress, so you have just received it. Congress will likely be considering it from now to probably October or November, as it goes through the authorization and the appropriation and the conferences.
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    And if—as in the past—the Congress will probably make some 10 to 20 percent changes in what the President proposed, DOD will then try to live with what is left during that period from October of this year until October—September 30th, to be precise—of 2004. That means, at any given time during the coming fiscal year, that this budget will address the plan that we developed last year, will be between 14 to 30 months old while we are trying to implement the product that comes out of the Congress. And we will be doing this in a world that is changing monthly before our eyes. At the minimum, we will always be between one and two and a half years out of date from the time the budget was fashioned and the time we are actually implementing it.

    The Department of Defense spends an average of $42 million an hour. We are not allowed to move more than $15 million from one account to another without getting permission from four to six committees, congressional committees, a process that can sometimes take several months to complete.

    Today, we estimate we have some 320,000 uniformed people doing nonmilitary jobs, yet we are calling up Reserves to fight the Global War On Terror.

     We must prepare and submit 26,000 pages of justifications and over 800 required reports to Congress each year, many of marginal value and probably some never read; yet, they consume hundreds of thousands of hours, to say nothing of the trees that are destroyed. These problems make it increasingly difficult to balance the risk.

    Consider these facts: I am told that when I was Secretary of Defense the last time in 1977, that the Defense authorization bill was 16 pages long. In 2001, it has grown to 534 pages.
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    In 1977, Congress made a total of 46 changes to the Army and Defense Agency Research, Development and Testing Evaluation programs. In 2001, that number had grown to 450 individual changes made by the various committees in the House and the Senate.

    For every change Congress makes in a program, there is a cost elsewhere in the budget; that is to say, every dollar added one place means a dollar has to be taken out, whether it is for housing or spare parts or transformation, whatever, making it difficult to all of us to keep in mind the importance of balancing the risks.

    We spend millions of taxpayer dollars training top-notch officers and senior enlisted, giving them experience, and then we shove them out the door in their 40s and early 50s when they are at the top of their game. And, of course, we end up paying 60 percent of their base pay and providing them with comprehensive health care for the rest of their lives.

    We could benefit, in my view, from their services longer, and we need to find ways to do that. The point is this: We are fighting the first wars of the 21st century with a Defense Department that was fashioned to meet the challenge of the mid-20th century. It has to change.

    Last year, Congress enacted historic legislation to create a new Department of Homeland Security and rearrange our government to be better prepared for potential attacks against our homes, schools and places of work. I feel we should now address the Department of Defense. We are already working with a number of you and with your staffs to help fashion legislation that we can present to you later this year to try to bring the Defense Department into the 21st century and to transform how it moves money, manages people and buys weapons.
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    We are looking at, among other things, proposals to establish a national security personnel system that would give the Department of Defense greater flexibility in how it handles and manages its civilian personnel.

    Today, because that task is difficult, we find frequently we are using military people, people in uniform, for nonmilitary jobs, because we can manage them much more readily. We find we are using contractors rather than civilian employees, again because you can manage a contractor more effectively. A onetime reorganization of the Department with some fast-track approval procedures may be proposed. We hope to establish more flexible rules for the flow of money through the Department, giving us the ability to move somewhat larger sums between programs and priorities so we can respond more quickly to urgent needs.

    We would like to establish a two-year budget cycle, so that the hundreds of people who invest time and energy to rebuild major programs every year can be freed up and not be required to do it on an annual basis.

    We would like to try to eliminate some of the regulations that make it impossible or unattractive for many small enterprises to do business with the Department: Expand authority for competitive outsourcing so we can get military personnel out of nonmilitary tasks and back into the field; establish more flexible military retirement rules so that those who do want to serve longer have the option to do so. We are consulting with you and other interested Members of Congress on these ideas, and we will work with you to try to reach these goals.

    Where we have authority to fix those problems, we are working hard on it, and we have a responsibility to do so. But to get the kind of agility and flexibility that we believe is required in the 21st century security environment, we will need some legislative relief.
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    As to the budget, last year's budget, the 2003 request, was finalized just as our review process was nearing completion. We were able to begin funding some transforming initiatives as the new defense strategy came into focus. But, it is this year's budget, Mr. Chairman, as you properly said, the 2004 request before you, that is really the first to fully reflect the new defense strategies and the new policies I outlined earlier.

    Balancing risk between near and long-term challenges is difficult in peacetime. But today, to best serve our country, we need to really accomplish three difficult challenges at once. We need to successfully fight the Global War On Terror. We need to prepare for near-term threats by making long-delayed investments in readiness, people, modernization, and we have to also prepare for the future by seeing that we make the kinds of investments that—whereby we will be transforming for the 21st century. The 2004 budget request is designed to try to do all three.

    Our defense review identified six goals that drive our transformation efforts. First, we have to be able to defend the United States homeland and the bases of operation overseas.

    Second, we have to be able to project and sustain forces in distant theaters.

    Third, we must be able to deny enemies sanctuary.

    And fourth, we have to improve our space capabilities and maintain unhindered access to space.
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    Fifth, we have to harness our country's advantages in information technology to link up different kinds of U.S. forces and allied forces so that they can fight jointly.

    And sixth, we have to be able to protect U.S. information networks from attack and to disable the information networks of adversaries where necessary. The President's budget requests funds for investments that will support each of those categories.

    Over the next six years, we have proposed a 30 percent increase in procurement funding and a 65 percent increase in funding for research, development, testing and evaluation above the 2002 baseline budget, a total investment of about $150 billion annually.

    A total investment in transforming military capabilities in the 2004 request is $24.3 billion, which is about $240 billion over the future-year defense plan. To prepare for the threats we will face later this decade, the 2004 budget request increases investments in a number of critical areas.

    Over the next six years, the President requested 15 percent increases in military personnel accounts, above the 2000 baseline budget. That is an increase in funding for family housing by ten percent over the same period.

    Over the next 6 years, we have requested a 20 percent increase in operation and maintenance accounts above the 2002 baseline. We have added $40 billion for readiness of all of the services and 6 billion for facilities sustainment over the same period. These investments should help us put a stop to the past practice of raiding the investment accounts to pay the immediate operation and maintenance needs.
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    This 2004 budget does not, and I repeat does not, include funds for operations in the Global War On Terror. Last year, we requested, but Congress did not approve, the $10 billion that we knew that we would need for the first months of this fiscal year to fight the Global War On Terror. Because we are still without those funds, every month since October 1st—October, November, December, January and now February—we have had to borrow from other programs to pay the costs of the war. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

    That does not include the cost of preparations for a possible contingency in Iraq, and the cost of the force flows that have taken place thus far.

    This pattern is fundamentally harmful to our ability to manage the Department. In our 2004 request, we increased the shipbuilding budget by $2.7 billion, making good on our hope last year that we could increase shipbuilding from five to seven ships. We increased the Special Operations budget by $1.5 billion to pay for equipment lost in the Global War On Terror and for an addition of close to 1,900 personnel.

    We increased military and civilian pay by $3.7 billion. We increased missile defense by $1.5 billion, including increased funds for research and development (R&D) of promising new technologies and to deploy a small number of interceptors beginning in the year 2004.

    The President has asked Congress for a total of $379.9 billion for fiscal year 2004, a $15.3 billion increase over last year's budget. It is a large amount of the taxpayers' money. But even with that increase, as large as it is, we still have to make tough choices between competing demands.
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    So, let me state it out straight. Despite the significant increase in shipbuilding, we did not get the shipbuilding rate up to the desired steady state of ten ships a year. Because of planned retirements of other ships, we will drop below the 300-ship fleet during the course of the future-year Defense plan. The Navy is in the process of transforming, and we have increased shipbuilding in 2004, but we do not want to lock ourselves into a shipbuilding program now, until we know precisely which ships we will want to build in the outyears.

    We have not been able to modernize our tactical air forces fast enough to reduce the average age of our aircraft fleet. We have not fully resolved our so-called ''high-demand, low-density'' problems, systems like J-STARS which, because they have been chronically underfunded in the past, will still be in somewhat short supply in this budget.

    We opted not to modernize a number of legacy programs, taking on some near-term risks, as you point out, Mr. Chairman, to fund transforming capabilities that we believe that we will need in this fast-moving world.

    We did not achieve the level of growth in science and technology accounts we had hoped for. Our request is for $10.2 billion, which comes to about 2.69 percent of the 2004 budget, which is below our target of about 3 percent. That is bad news.

    But there is good news, as well. In making difficult choices between competing priorities, we believe we made better choices this year because we followed the new approach to balancing risks that we developed in last year's defense review, an approach that takes into account not just the risks in operations and in contingency plans, but also the risks to people, to modernization and to transformation. We believe the result is a more balanced approach, and as a result, a more coherent, total program.
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    As such, it is a program that can be adversely unbalanced unintentionally unless we are careful and we work together with you, the authorizers, with the appropriators and with the conference committees in this and in the other body as we complete our work.

    While we are requesting increased funds, the services have stepped up to the plate and will be canceling, slowing or restructuring a number of programs. In all, the Army, the Department of the Navy and the Air Force have achieved savings of some $80 billion over the future-year defense plan, money that will be reinvested in the services, in capabilities that we believe and they believe are necessary for the 21st century.

    As a result of all of these strategic investments and decisions, we can now see the effects of transforming begin to unfold. Consider just some of the changes that are taking place: Today the missile defense research, development and testing program has been revitalized, and we are on track for a limited land-sea deployment in 2004 and 2005.

    Today, we are converting four Trident ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) into conventional guided-missile submarines (SSGN) capable of delivering Special Forces and cruise missiles to denied areas.

    Today, we are proposing to build the CVN–21 aircraft carrier in 2007, which will include many of the new—many, but not all, of the new capabilities that were previously scheduled to be introduced only in 2001.

    Today, we have seen targeted pay increases and other reforms help to retain midcareer officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) so that fewer of them leave the service while still in their prime, and so the country can continue to benefit from their talent and their experience.
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    We believe these are positive changes that should ensure that future administrations will have the capabilities that they will need to defend our country.

    Finally, I believe that the transparency of the process that we have used to develop this budget has been unprecedented. For several months now, the officials of the Department of Defense have been providing detailed briefings to those interested here on Capitol Hill, Members and staff as well, so that Congress is not simply being presented with the budget today, but has been kept in the loop as decisions were being thought through and made.

    Our goal was to ensure that Members and staff have every opportunity to better understand the thinking that lies behind these many proposals in this comprehensive budget. I am told that the extent of consultation from the Department to the Congress this year has been unprecedented.

    We hope that this spirit of openness and cooperation can continue in the period ahead. We must work together to bring DOD out of the Industrial Age and help get it arranged for the fast-paced security environment of the 21st century.

    I close by saying that transformation is not an event. There is no point where the Defense Department will move from being untransformed to transformed. Our goal is to set in motion a process of continuing transformation and a culture that will help to keep the United States several steps ahead of any potential adversaries. To do that, we need not only resources, but equally we need the freedom to use them with speed and agility so that we can respond quickly to the new threats that we will face as this century unfolds.
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    I feel deeply about the urgency of seeing that we transform the Department and enable it to serve the American people and our friends and allies in a responsible way in the period ahead.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for a very full statement. And thank you for your service to the country.

    [The prepared statement of Secretary Rumsfeld can be viewed in the hard copy.]

    The CHAIRMAN. And General Myers, the floor is yours, sir.

STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD MYERS, USAF, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

    General MYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Skelton and other distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to report on the state of the United States Armed Forces.

    Mr. Chairman, like the Secretary, I request that my prepared statement be submitted for the record.

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    The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

    General MYERS. Thank you, sir. I will make some short introductory remarks, then we will be happy to take your questions.

    Today, our Nation's Armed Forces remain engaged in a wide variety of missions. Many of those missions are done far from the public eye. This past weekend, however, we witnessed one of those missions end tragically. Three naval officers, two Air Force officers, and their fellow courageous astronauts lost their lives while bringing the shuttle back to Earth. Their example and accomplishment will remain etched in our hearts forever, and I join with Secretary Rumsfeld and Members of the Congress in extending my deepest sympathies to their families.

    Around the world our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen carry on their missions. There is no more important task before them than to bring and take the fight to the terrorists. Active duty, Reserve, DOD civilians, together with members of the interagency and our coalition partners form one team in this effort. Our servicemen and women remain a highly effective instrument of national power. And every day this team helps disrupt and capture terrorist cells around the world.

    In addition, our combined efforts in Afghanistan have accomplished a great deal over the past year. We have restored hope to the people of Afghanistan, and that nation is on the way to recovery; but there is still much work to be done in Afghanistan, as there is in the war on terrorism.

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    As the President and the Secretary of Defense have said, this war will last a long time. But let there be no doubt we will win. No matter what tactic they confront, I am convinced that improving our joint warfighting will be central to our future success. So let me just take a minute and share with you what we are doing in that area.

    As you look at joint warfighting today and tomorrow, in my view, improving our command and control capabilities is the single most essential investment we can make. Enhanced command and control, combined with intelligence that is rapidly shared among warfighters, will allow our joint commanders to integrate and unite separate service capabilities in a single operation or across a campaign.

    In my view, that translates directly to increased efficiencies, but more importantly, increased effectiveness.

    To reinforce this potential, the President directed Joint Forces Command to focus on transforming our joint team to meet the challenges of this century.

    As a result, this command's efforts included the first major joint field experiment, Millennium Challenge 02. This experiment demonstrated a variety of new concepts and systems that enable critical command and control collaborative information sharing and time-sensitive targeting capabilities. Investing in these capabilities is essential to winning in combat today and in the future. Information, General Franks and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) are using concepts, technologies, and capabilities from Millennium Challenge 02 in their current operational planning in case of an Iraq contingency.

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    One of the positive results from Millennium Challenge 02 is the potential for a joint commander to communicate with his or her forces while en route to a crisis area. Near-term technical solutions will allow our joint team to keep situational awareness on the battlefield while converging from dispersed bases.

    Most importantly, they will allow the commander to employ forces without sectors or deconfliction measures, as we have used in the past. Joint Forces Command's efforts in this area will help us ensure that the operational concepts and technical command and control solutions that we develop are, in effect, born joint.

    Our emerging command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and requirements capabilities must allow the services to rapidly and repeatedly plug into each others' information networks and then play or operate as one joint team. As such, future weapons systems and delivery platforms must be weighted towards what they bring to the joint war fighting team.

    Our approach to improving our command and control networks reflects our larger approach to upgrade our forces in general. We must continue to balance near-term recapitalization modernization with long-term investments to truly transform the force for the future.

    In the first case, we are ensuring our joint team is as capable as possible for today's mission. In the second case, we are ensuring we are relevant to dominate a range of military operations for tomorrow.

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    With your support, we can ensure our men and women in uniform have the best tools and technologies possible. Investments in hardware are only part of our task to keep the forces ready; to meet these challenges, we must continue to invest in our people and in their skills. Your commitment to improving joint professional military education, will be one way to ensure our warfighters have the intellectual foundation to meet the unknown challenges that we will face. Your support to fund the training and to equip our troops with the most capable systems sends a powerful message of support.

    You also demonstrate your commitment by ensuring they have the quality of life that they deserve. In terms of pay, and housing, and medical care, you and the administration have made quality-of-life initiatives a top priority.

    Our world-class troops deserve first-class support. You have always been there for them, and on their behalf, I thank you for your continued support.

    This past year I have had the opportunity to visit with these brave Americans in every theater. They are committed to protecting our Nation and our interests around the world. I am always struck by their sense of duty and their sense of dedication; their sacrifices and selfless character are an inspiration to all of us.

    And I am really proud to serve with them, and it is an honor to represent them every day.

    Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for the opportunity to be here today, and look forward to your questions.
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    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General Myers.

    [The prepared statement of General Myers can be viewed in the hard copy.]

    The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.

    Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one question.

    Mr. Secretary, I have long been concerned, and I know others have, as well, that North Korea might take the opportunity presented by U.S. engagement in Iraq to engage in conflict with American and South Korean forces.

    What preparations are being made to cover both areas militarily? North Korea must be left with no doubt of our ability to act simultaneously in both places.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman Skelton, I agree completely with that statement. The situation in North Korea is a dangerous one. The behavior of the North Korean government is, over time, from time to time, threatening. It poses—given its military capabilities, it poses a threat to our forces as well as the South Korean forces and has for decades.

    In addition, today, with their nuclear program, they pose a new threat, that of not simply having what is assessed to be at the present time one or two nuclear weapons, but also the threat of developing nuclear terms in a relatively short period of time to make another six to eight weapons, which they then, of course, could sell, as they sell ballistic missile technologies to terrorist states or terrorist organizations.
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    What we need to do is what we have been doing and doing well over the decades, and that is to work with the South Korean government, and to see that the deterrent—we have the capability to deter and defend in that part of the world.

    Our forces are arranged around the world, not in a threatening way, but in a way that demonstrates to the world that we do in fact have the capability of dealing in more than one theater at a time. And we will see that that continues to be the case.

    General MYERS. Can I add on to that, Mr. Secretary?

    Congressman Skelton, from a pure military point of view, and from the Secretary's point of view, as well, fundamental to our defense strategy is the ability to do more than one thing at a time; and I know you are well aware of that. And so, two major events happening nearly simultaneously is a situation that we plan for.

    So it is fundamental to our planning, it is fundamental in our force structure, and I agree with everything the Secretary said. I don't think we should leave any doubt in anybody's mind that the American military is ready for whatever contingency might arise.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. The point you make is an important one, because we have to be sensitive. To the point the world thinks the United States is focused on the problems in Iraq, it is conceivable that someone could make a mistake and believe that that is an opportunity for them to make-- to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided, and we have to see that we are arranged, and it is clear to the world that that is—it will not be an opportune time.
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    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The chairman of the air-land subcommittee, Mr. Weldon.

    Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all three of you for coming in today. And thank you for your service to the country. I am not going to talk about the threats that we are facing right now, because I am sure my colleagues will; and I have total and complete confidence in the leadership you have all provided to our services.

    I want to talk, however, about the funding shortfall that this committee continues to try to address, working in cooperation with you. Last year, we had $24.5 billion of unfunded priorities that were given to us by the service chiefs, and we tried our best and did maneuvering as best we could. And I think the final outcome was that we were able to authorize maybe half of that, maybe slightly more than half of that even. All of that didn't get appropriated.

    And this has been a pattern that has been continuing for more than a decade. We are continuing to see our shipbuilding accounts, even though they were increased in this year's budget, not be what they should be, our tactical fighters; we don't have enough money to fund the programs coming on line, our helicopter programs and ammunition and a whole host of other activities.

    So it behooves us not to just fight for a bigger top-line number which you have given the leadership for this year to follow, but in identifying those areas where we can free up money, where we can save money that could go for these other priorities.
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    I want to talk about two specific areas where you provided leadership last year, Mr. Secretary, but which we have to renew our efforts this year.

    The first is the privatization of our military housing. I know you are interested in this concept, because I have had a number of discussions with you. The private sector organizations in America who do housing for our universities and colleges have said on the record that they could see over a 5-to-10-year period an investment of $60 to $80 billion in private money to redo the bulk of our base housing around the country.

    That would be no cost to our defense budget, and yet it would be a significant economic stimulus, especially to those municipalities where that construction would take place. And it would also free up money in our military construction (MILCON) budget, so instead of having to apply money into the traditional approach of using MILCON dollars for base housing, we could do it with private sector funding.

    Mr. Secretary, the Army, I think, has done a fantastic job in this area, and I want to praise the Army publicly. I would also say, in my opinion, the worst service has been the Air Force in terms of not following through on the privatization. There is no standard process for all of the services; and I would ask you to, number one, when I finish my second part, comment on your privatization priorities for this session of Congress and especially this year. I think it could be a real plus for us in terms of overall resource allocation needs.

    The second area deals with the environmental requirements that are imposed in the military. Now, I will take a back seat to no one on environmental legislation and the support of the Clean Water, Clean Air and Endangered Species, and every other major act that we have passed in the Congress. I am proud to be the only Republican on the Migratory Bird Commission.
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    But we faced a huge battle that, in my opinion, got totally skewed by the more radical environmental groups to somehow portray to the American people that you and we wanted to destroy the environmental laws of this country. I am still getting e-mails; I am sure my colleagues are, as well, saying, ''Don't let the Pentagon trample on our fragile environment.'' I don't want to do that, and I know you don't want to do that.

    And the whole battle over the Migratory Bird Act was not to trample on migratory birds, but simply to allow the Pentagon to apply some common sense to allow us to be able to train properly. Anyone that has been out to Camp Pendleton and seen the bulk of our training site for the amphibious training of our Marines and realized that 80 percent of that land area is set aside because of one or more endangered species understands this is not just a problem in training, it is also a cost problem.

    So those are two areas where I think we can be especially helpful to you.

    Would you please reiterate your position on those, and would you also answer for the record, Mr. Secretary, is it your intent to destroy the environmental laws of this country, and do you support the trampling of the Endangered Species Act as the more liberal wing of the—not the Democratic Party, because a lot of Democrats are with us on this—of the environmental movement, who have tried to portray our efforts to simply bring some common sense to the way we allow the military to deal with the preservation of the environment, which I think no other agency in the Federal Government has done as much, that is, to preserve the environment, the work being done on our military bases by our military leaders.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Congressman, I thank you very much. There is no question, but that the Department has been and is now and will be in the future sensitive to the environment. We do everything within reason to try to see that we protect the environment. We do have a great deal of land, and there is no question, but that there are environmental interests and concerns that are perfectly legitimate.

    As you know, last year, as you pointed out, we came before the Congress and indicated that we had eight provisions that we needed to assure that we had the proper readiness and range preservation. We got, as I recall, parts of three, and none of the remaining five.

    We will be back before you. I hate to put folks through that again, because there is no question there are people who oppose it, but we believe very deeply that the remaining five are important. And we appreciate the support of those who have provided it.

    With respect to housing, we are making progress. As I recall, we have gone from something like 180,000 substandard or inadequate units down to something like 100,000 by the end of 2004. In fiscal year 2003, we had $240 million in family housing privatization that provided for 30,238 units. In the 2004 budget, it is increased to $346 million for 36,262 new units.

    You are right. The Air Force is the one service that, it appears in the current forward-year Defense plan, will not get down to our target during that period of 2004 to 2009.

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    Mr. ZAKHEIM. It is actually 2004 to 2007. There are four bases that the Air Force will not have completed by 2007. They will be completed inside the United States by 2008. Then there are some overseas facilities that will be completed by 2009. That would bring us to 100 percent.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I have seen some of this housing that is being developed as a result of the privatization effort. It is excellent, there is just no question about it. But the leverage of using private funds is something that is going to enable us to accelerate this process in a very important way.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. If I could add, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, the leverage is actually about $8 for every dollar that we invest. In other words, the taxpayer is getting $8 worth of value for a dollar invested by the government in privatized housing. That means that we are spending upwards of $2.5 billion equivalent, but actually costing the taxpayer $350 million, give or take. It is a great deal for the taxpayer.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

    The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt.

    Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Secretary, General Myers, thank you very much for your fine testimony and for your service.

    I am curious as to why you didn't include in the budget some item for Afghanistan and some identification of an increment for the war on terror. We are in our third year of that endeavor, and it would probably help you, from a marketing standpoint, if you could break it out and tell us what it is; and it would be useful to us from an oversight standpoint if we knew what the extra cost was.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Yes, sir. I am happy to respond.

    Last year we did that, and the Congress rejected it. This year we said, well, what can we do? So we know that the Global War On Terrorism is going to be going on. It is going to take a good, long time, I am afraid. We knew that last year when we asked for the money and the Congress said, well, you don't know precisely what the money is going to be spent for, when in fact we knew we had to spend it for force protection, we had to spend it for combat air patrols over the United States of America, we had to spend it for Afghanistan. We are using training and equipment in Georgia, in Yemen, and in the Philippines, some various military-to-military relationship activities.

    This year what we said was, do we go back up there and try again and have it then be not approved and used for other purposes, which is what is happening to the $10 billion that some have set aside—thought they set aside for the Department of Defense; or do we just go up and say the facts are we are spending about a billion-five a month, a billion-six for the Global War On Terrorism, excluding Iraq. And we have been doing that, if you average it out, probably out over the October-November-December-January period.

    Mr. SPRATT. Do you propose that that come out of what you have allocated here, or do you have in mind a supplemental to fund it later in the year?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Let me just finish the thought.

    The second is, we figure we have spent about 2.1 billion already for the Iraq force flow that has taken place that is related to supporting the diplomacy. In each case, as I said in my testimony, they are not in this budget. We are going to have to come to you for a supplemental. The longer it takes to get the supplemental up and to get the supplemental approved, the more we will be pulling money out of other pots to fund the immediate expenses; and then, ultimately, we hope we will get approval for a supplemental.
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    Mr. SPRATT. So in addition to a potential war in Iraq, there will be, very probably, a supplemental to fund the incremental cost of the operations in Afghanistan, and elsewhere related to the war on terror?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. It is not just Afghanistan, it is the Global War On Terror.

    Mr. SPRATT. I understand that.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. You are correct. We must have that.

    Mr. SPRATT. You mention in your budget testimony somewhere that you provided $7.9 billion for homeland defense next year and 55 over the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP). Can you tell us as much as you can in open session, number one, is that new money or simply reidentification of old money; and number two, what are you doing differently with that sum of money?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, we would be happy to. The first thing I should do, I think, is make sure everyone understands that that number is very soft. There are a lot of ways you can characterize whether or not a dollar spent is or is not involved with homeland security, and it is a very difficult thing.

    I believe that number is the result, not of the Department of Defense's formula for what we spend on homeland security, but rather the Office of Management and Budget's formula; is that correct?
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    Mr. ZAKHEIM. In effect. There are a couple of different categories that OMB uses, as you probably know, Mr. Spratt. One of them is called overseas combating terrorism, that addresses combating terrorism activities——

    Mr. SPRATT. Is this new money, a new effort?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. No, this is money in our budget. It is new budget money, but it is identified by OMB as such. These are programs that we are conducting, and therefore, that—it can be construed that way. But as the Secretary pointed out, everything we spend is to defend the United States.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. The money we spend all over the globe is designed not to protect the globe as much as it is to protect the United States. So, it is a very difficult thing to do. But in that number would be the—the cost, for example, of the combat air patrols over the United States, the force protection that we have to provide in this country because of the Global War On Terrorism, those types of things.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Those types of things, special operations activities that may involve a ship that comes in to the port and shows an unusual radiation and has to be looked at; all of those types of things that when you add them up come out to that.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Now let me just clarify it for you. If you are looking at one of those six transformation categories, that is our listing and that would include things like missile defense, so there is a little bit of overlap and perhaps some confusion. And then there is the way OMB categorizes it.
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    Mr. SPRATT. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

    The gentleman who chairs the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, Mr. Saxton.

    Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Secretary, I have two questions actually. One has to do with command structure and the other one with force structure. With regard to the command structure question related to special operations forces, in your—in the slide that you provided us on special operations forces, there is a bullet point which reads, add Special Operations Command (SOCOM)—add SOCOM role as a supported combat command. I would like (a) to know your vision as to how that will roll out and manifest itself.

    On the force structure question, today in your remarks in your testimony you referred to the Reserves and calling them up in this time of need, and previously I heard you made some public remarks with regard to Reserves and the difficulty in getting them mobilized, and other matters perhaps. And so, while it has been said that in today's world, when we find it necessary to go to war, we can't go very well without the Reserves. And at the same time there is a buzz around the Pentagon and here in Congress that you may have a new vision for the Reserves. And I would like to ask you if you would share that vision with us today.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, first, thank you, Mr. Congressman. First, with respect to the role of the special operators as a supported command, historically they have been in a supporting role, and a combatant commander in an area of responsibility would bring the special operators in to assist that combatant commander in a function; which is basically, for example, what General Franks has been doing in the Central Command in Afghanistan, to the extent the special operators have been involved—which they have, and done a wonderful job.

    Because of the global nature of the war on terrorism we have said that (a) we want to increase the size of that capability. We want to replace their equipment and we have put a good deal of money in the budget, to plus-up to see that we do that. And third, we want to migrate them into a situation where they are not only in a supporting role to an area-of-responsibility commander, but they are in a supported role, meaning that they would, in fact, plan and execute an operation and to the extent they needed assistance from other commands, they would receive that assistance and the command would be the supporting command.

    We have not executed anything in that regard at the present time. They are being staffed up to do that. We need the funds in this budget to enable them to do that. But as General Myers and all of us looked at the world, it became rather clear that we needed this strength and capability.

    Dick.

    General MYERS. Yeah. As the Secretary and I looked at this problem along with the other combatant commanders and the service chiefs, with the war on terrorism we have a global problem; but nobody, none of the commands, looked globally at this problem. The one we thought was best suited to do that was Special Operations Command, and so that is the vision. If you give them that task, then you have to reorganize them slightly and change their instruction slightly, as the Secretary explained. But that is the vision.
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    This is a worldwide threat and it needs to be addressed from somebody looking with a world global view. The regional commands are no less important than they were, but we want one command to look at this as a whole.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. With respect to the second question on the Reserves, one of the things that has happened is as we have started these call-ups and we have started to mobilize and deploy people for the various needs around the country, it became rather clear that in some skills the only place those skills are located is in the Guard and Reserve. And so, the question comes up which we are now addressing: Is that really the way we want to be arranged?

    If we know that we are likely to be involved in a variety of different things around the world—we currently have Afghanistan, we have got maritime interception operations, we have got training and equipping in Georgia and Yemen, and we have got activities in the Philippines. We have now force flow with respect to Iraq. Ought we not to have on active duty people who have some of those same skills so that 100 percent of a particular skill or need is not in the Guard or Reserve?

    Now, the reason I say that as a likely prospect is this: The Guard and Reserve are fantastic and they are serving our country so wonderfully today and they are doing it with high morale and a readiness to serve. But I think to maintain effective Guard and Reserve, we are going to have to be respectful of their employers and we are going to have to be respectful of them. And we need to make sure that we don't continuously call those kinds of people up. And unless we have some of those skills on active duty, we are forced to keep calling them up. That is one of the elements.
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    There are other thoughts that Dr. David Chu and others in the Department are considering, but we have reached no conclusions about how we might want to adjust the Guard and Reserve at this time; and as we get our thinking together, we obviously would be back in touch with the Congress.

    Mr. SAXTON. If I may just conclude, Mr. Secretary, if you would be kind enough to keep us engaged in that process along the way it would be extremely helpful.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, we would be happy to do it. And what the—you and your specific responsibilities might want to do is to arrange for kind of a 3 or 3 months' update from David Chu and we can set that up any time you would like.

    Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.

    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary and General Myers.

    Mr. Secretary, I am obviously pleased that you have decided to increase the shipbuilding budget. But I have got to admit some concern. Last year when Admiral Clark came and spoke to us, he said that the fleet should be a minimum of 375 ships. By your estimate we will go to a fleet of 301 ships. And considering a 30-year life span of those seven ships that you will put in the budget this year, you are looking then at a fleet of 210 if you continue this legacy. I don't think it gets us there.
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    I don't think the world has shrunk any. I don't think it is going to be easier for us to have basing on other people's soil. I think it is going to be more difficult for us to do so. I think the way to make up for that is with the sea-based platform. I am just curious. At what point do you intend to turn that around? Because 2009 seems a heck of a long ways away.

    The other thing I would like to point out, General Myers, I noticed in your testimony you mentioned the Cano Limon pipeline. Just a minute ago I heard the Secretary say that every dollar in the defense budget goes to protect Americans. I have got a little trouble—no, I have got a lot of trouble spending 96 million American taxpayer dollars protecting a pipeline that is owned by Occidental Petroleum through which Colombian National Oil Company oil flows, both of which had record profits last year, and now with some recent changes being protected by approximately 200 members of the United States special forces. Given what you just said, I would like a better explanation of how that somehow is in America's interest, given that it seems a very small percentage of that oil ends up in American refineries.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. With respect to the shipbuilding portion of the question, you are right. The number of ships is going to dip down to a low of 291 in '06 and be above where we are today by '09. And but one should look at a couple of things. First, the Secretary of the Navy reported to Congress that the risk associated with those lower numbers of surface combatants is acceptable because the ships that are replacing the ones that are being retired are more capable ships. So if one looks not simply at numbers, but at capabilities and lethality, I think he is correct, the Chief of Naval Operations.

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    Second, we are—I forget where we are in this work that is being done by the Navy and by others in terms of determining the kinds of ships that are appropriate. But you are absolutely right. Basing access is going to be less attractive over the decades, I would assume, rather than more attractive, and clearly having those platforms is critically important. And the question is: How might they be used? And I know the Secretary of the Navy and the acting Secretary and the Chief of Naval Operations will be up here to talk about that with you.

    But, I mean, at the moment, anticipating a major naval battle in the world is a hard thing to do. We need our Navy, as you said, for—to dissuade anyone from thinking they could develop a navy that could compete with ours. We need it to provide access across the globe. And we need it, as you suggest, because there will be difficulties in finding ground-based platforms in some cases. We are in the process of fashioning what is required, but I would—the only thing I would say is—we are anxious to get that number up and we are anxious to reduce the age of the fleet, and we will be coming back to the Congress with proposals to do that. But I think it is important to look at the capability of the fleet as well as just numbers. Do you want to comment?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Certainly. Mr. Taylor, first of all, as you know, last year you were very concerned as well about the numbers, and the Secretary said we would get those numbers up, and we did. And what is significant about this plan is that it never drops below seven. That is not a trivial matter considering where we were not too long ago.

    Second of all, the jump in the numbers is actually probably a lot more realistic than you might think, simply because that is related to the new ship we are developing, the Littoral Combat Ship which is geared to the kinds of missions the Secretary was talking about: New missions for the 21st century against mining warfare units, against diesel submarines and other such. These are going to be less expensive ships. We can buy more of them. There were four of them in '09 and we start in '05. So, this is a program that will be starting and will be ramping up and there is R&D money for it today.
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    And then there are the studies the Secretary mentioned, looking at our various capabilities both in terms of forcible entry capabilities and undersea capabilities that we are just starting up and that will give better definition to the kind of forces we are going to need in the future years.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Do you want to answer the pipeline?

    General MYERS. You bet. Yes, Congressman Taylor. I think the last part of your question was what is in America's interest in Colombia that would dictate this sort of effort?

    Mr. TAYLOR. If I recall, General, the statement was made that every dollar in this defense budget goes for America's defense.

    General MYERS. You bet.

    Mr. TAYLOR. I would like you to tell me how that 96 million, plus the expenses of having approximately 200 special forces down there——

    General MYERS. Clearly we have a plan to help train and in some cases equip Colombian forces, and the reason that is important is because Colombia's democracy is under threat and it is under threat from insurgents. It turns out that these terrorists or insurgents are also connected to drugs, which is a powerful nexus if you think about terrorist drug money and the ability to do harm in the world.
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    So, I think there are a couple of reasons it is important to American security. First of all, Colombia is a democracy, but it is under threat. And President Uribe has a very aggressive strategy to deal with that. It is a strategy that we as the United States helped him develop, and we are committed, I think, in terms of the military, to help train and equip his forces to deal with that insurgency.

    And then second, as it relates to the drug piece of this, and drug money funneling into terrorist organizations, I think that is important to our security, as well. And it is not just Colombia. It is the whole Andean region or, for that matter, could probably have some effect if Colombia were to—the democracy there were to fail for some reason or the country were to fail, it would have a dramatic impact on the countries in the surrounding region, perhaps all of the continent. And so for that reason I think it is very important to our security.

    Mr. TAYLOR. General, I hope we can have—my time is up. I hope we can have this discussion at some other time. I would remind you that we have already committed over a billion to the war on drugs in Colombia, a separate line item.

    General MYERS. Yes, sir. Be happy to do that, sir.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman who chairs the Subcommittee on the Total Force, Mr. McHugh.

    Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen let me begin by saying, as my other colleagues did, how much we all appreciate your service and particularly your leadership in what we recognize are very difficult times. As the Chairman said in his opening statement, many of us are very, very pleased, if not thrilled, with the new choices we have to make, choices that at least are heading us in the right direction and a reversal of where we found ourselves in terms of military budgeting and military strategy in the not so distant past, and it is a pleasant change indeed.
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    And certainly, one of the things as I sat here and listened to the comment of my colleagues and the comments that you made, that you have difficult choices in every budget, and I think clearly we would all like to see the opportunity to do more in every category and I am sure you would as well.

    But with respect to the subcommittee duties I have, I did want to follow through on a point that my next-door seat mate and my friend from New Jersey brought up, and that is the issue of Guard and Reserve, but I would like to take it to a somewhat broader context.

    You heard Mr. Skelton, and I know you understand others amongst us are very concerned about the overall question of end strength. Do we have sufficient men and women in uniform in both the active and the Guard and Reserve to sensibly and humanely, in terms of their lives, carry forward with all that we are asking them to take up and all that we are likely to ask them to take up? And, Mr. Secretary, I know you have got a net zero policy in place with respect to end strength levels. Pardon me. I know, as well as you have mentioned, you currently are undergoing a reevaluation of the distribution of job categories between the active and the Guard and Reserve components and, as well, are very—I think, rightfully, studying the issue of moving nonessential military jobs away from military people so that those kinds of jobs could be filled by others, and the military people would be freed up to do the work of regular military. And I think that is a very sensible thing.

    What does concern me, however, is that in the meantime, we are still held at an end strength number that I question is sufficient and sustainable. A number of my colleagues and I visited Guard and Reserve troops over the ten-day period just last week throughout the European Theater at Ramstein, Sigonella, Naples, Vicenza, and to a person, every one of these Guard and Reserve individuals were questioning their willingness to re-up and were questioning the sustainability of the call-ups that they had all experienced. Every single one, multiple call-ups in the past several years. And by the way, these were all volunteers.
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    So if you look at that kind of pressure, if you look at the numbers of deployments that are occurring in the active Guard and Reserve, or active components, and the likelihood of continued conflict and continued projects and assignments, I am just wondering where you are in terms of these reviews. How long do you think until you have come, Mr. Secretary, to a final determination on sufficient end strength? And, perhaps equally important, at least in my mind, what kind of factors do you think would justify a permanent request for end strength increase?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, Mr. Congressman, I do not know the date that these studies will be completed, but I do know that we have been looking at, as you suggested, a variety of ways of relieving pressure. One is to use the flexibility—one is to go to volunteers as opposed to call-ups, and we have gotten an enormous number of volunteers. It has just been very heartening and they are pleased to do it and proud to do it, and their morale is very high. Everywhere I have gone, their morale is very high.

    We are moving people, military people, out of jobs that should be done by civilians and we will come back and ask for an end strength increase at any moment that we believe it is in the interest of the Armed Forces. At the present time, we do not have evidence that suggests that is the case. It is very difficult to know, for example, were the President to decide that we have to use force in Iraq, how long those call-ups would last. It is not possible to know. It is not possible to know if that is going to take four days or four weeks or four months. It isn't going to take four years. If force has to be used, it will be a—in the shorter distances rather than the longer time frames.

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    Now, we are pulling people down also from other activities. We are reducing the size of the force in the Sinai. We are reducing the sizes of our forces in Bosnia and Kosovo on a fairly steady basis. We are looking at other places around the world. We are in the process of reviewing our forces and how they are deployed all over because, as you all know, it is a three-to-one rotation problem. And to the extent we can have somebody located at home, it is not a three-to-one problem. My view is that the taxpayers are paying all this money for the Department of Defense so that it can be used if it needs to defend our country. And a call-up is a perfectly acceptable thing.

    We believe in the total force concept, and the people who have been called up have agreed with that and been proud to do it. We are meeting our end strength. We have improved ourselves on retention, and we have not seen any erosion in the Guard and Reserve. And to keep that situation, we are going to have to continue to be respectful of them and the difficulties that can be imposed if it goes too far, and we are watching that.

    Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you. If I may, Mr. Secretary, I too have talked to these people and I couldn't agree with you more about their sense of commitment and their effectiveness. We did ask the commanding officers to leave the room and, with all due respect, I think maybe when the Secretary of Defense is talking to them, they may not be as forthcoming with some of their concerns as they are in a different setting. I commend you for your vigilance and I certainly want to urge you to continue to watch, because I am very concerned that it is going to start to show those erosionary effects. But we need to work together on that, and I promise you we will.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Can I just add one comment?
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    Mr. MCHUGH. Sure.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. When I have seen a morale problem, it isn't because they were called up; it is because they aren't being effectively used or properly used.

    Mr. MCHUGH. That is true.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. And what General Myers and General Pace and I have found is that our call-up process, the alerting, the mobilizing, and the deploying is crude; and we are in the process of learning lessons from what has been going on, and we are going to find a much better way to see that the threads of all of these ways of doing it are much better and much more respectful of the people that are being called up.

    Mr. MCHUGH. Well, you are absolutely right.

    General MYERS. It really is. This is an Industrial Age process that we have not taken to the Information Technology Age, and I think I can guarantee you within a very short period of time we are going to try to turn that around.

    I just want to mention one other thing in addition, because I talk to them, too. And every crowd I address, no matter where I am in the world, I say, okay, all the reservists here, Guard and Reserves, hold up your hand. And, you know, sometimes it is a half to a third of the audience. And the one thing that they always ask when I ask them what can we do to help your situation is they want predictability in their lives. With predictability, they can do, and they are willing to do, almost anything; and they can, you know, get situated with their employers, they can get situated with their families and so forth. And we are working very hard. That is high on the Secretary's agenda. It is high on the service chiefs' agenda, and the joint chiefs, to try to provide as much predictability. We are not perfect in this because of some of these Industrial Age tools we have to work with, but that is certainly our goal.
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    Mr. MCHUGH. I appreciate that and I know you gentlemen are deeply concerned. I hope nothing I have said would suggest otherwise. And the bottom line, as I said, if I may, Mr. Chairman, we certainly want to work with you in that effort. It is a very important one. I know you share that objective. Thank you both.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    If I can follow up, Mr. Secretary, with the question that Mr. McHugh just spoke of, I don't think the issue here is morale or whether or not the motivation is at point. The question here is the expectation of deployment and the impact that that will have on the question of end strength and the commitment that can be expected by those who have been called up.

    I have heard numbers, seen numbers, I haven't done the addition myself specifically, but 60-plus areas in which there is some kind of deployment. There are obviously three or four in which that is major, from Colombia to the Philippines to Afghanistan, et cetera, and possibly Iraq if that unfortunately moves ahead.

    So the question here is, what are you expecting to have to put together in terms of budget numbers for deployments in the next year? What are you expecting to have to require of those who have been called up in terms of stop loss and extension of tours in terms of length? Has there been any consideration given to the civilian side of that; for example, police officers being called up, and for extended terms, firefighters et cetera, all in the context of end strength?
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    I don't doubt for a moment what you just stated with respect to the degree of morale being exhibited, degree and depth of commitment, and that should they be needed in the future you would be willing to do that. But surely you are trying to look forward in that and have some estimations that you can give us. I am not going to hold you to a hard and fast number, but I think it is legitimate for this committee when it is giving budget authorization consideration to take those questions into account.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman Abercrombie, there is no question but that—you mentioned stop losses; that when people are asked to come on for a period, come on for that period, and then a stop loss is imposed and they are not able to end the period when they planned, that that is unfortunate and we ought to do all we can to see that we bring people on for the proper amount of time and see if we can't do a better job of predicting in the future.

    The problem of repeat call-ups is a particularly difficult one, as well. I think people can understand a single call-up, but when they are called up and then get off, and then in a relatively short period of time are called back, that is a bit much. And what we have to do is to complete this work that I mentioned earlier to see if we can't make sure we have got on active duty people who expect to be on active duty with the skills that in some cases are only in the Reserves, because the people that I——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I understand. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, just because my time is limited and I appreciate that answer. May I say to you that this question is going to arise before we come to our conclusion on authorization again, and my suggestion is that the Department and perhaps General Myers, both, and to you, we need to have more of a definitive idea from you about expectation of costs associated with deployments and the possibility of end strength changes before we finish this budget. And I expect a proper subcommittee will take that up, okay?
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Yes, sir. We have cost estimates right now that we can provide the subcommittee with respect to current deployments. That is not a difficulty at all.

    [The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. And then we can take the end strength question. The second thing I wanted to get to—well, two more things. I will try to go quickly. And you can give a short answer because, you know— can you tell me how much you are putting forward for the Northern Command? I haven't been able to find it yet. I know this is a question from me that is just totally unexpected.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. We will get that for you for the record. We do have a number.

    [The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Thank you very much. And you were able to staff that Northern Command with people from the other commands, right? And you still maintain that they weren't overstaffed. That is okay. I just said that for an opportunity to put the boot in a little.

    And the last thing, the last question that I have has to do with the draft. Now, I know what your views are with respect to that. But should we come to a question in this committee with regard to end strength and with regard to the expected deployments necessary to meet a threat to the United States, are you prepared to say now that you are unalterably opposed to the idea of national service or draft? And second, or concomitantly with that question, would you comment on the idea of having women register for selective service inasmuch as women are now an integral part of the armed services of the United States—as differentiated from a draft, per se.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. First——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. As you—so the context is there, you probably know, or if you don't, I want to say for the record, I am a strong supporter of selective service. I think everybody ought to register at 18. And I think when I say everybody, I mean everybody, men and women. And I would like to know if you have a view on that and then the question about the draft.

    Secretary RUMSFELD [continuing]. Number one, I personally believe that the registration system is a good one. The administration has no proposals for altering it at the present time.

    With respect to national service, it is something that is outside of the sphere of the Department of Defense, and there are certainly arguments pro and con on that, but they are not Defense Department positions.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If it is outside the sphere, would you rely on our judgment then?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I think that you would find other committees of Congress would have a voice in that.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. With respect to the draft, as you said, you know my views. And this country does not need a compulsory system to bring men and women into the service at the present time, in my view.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you, sir.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman who chairs the Subcommittee on Readiness and Military Construction, Mr. Hefley.

    Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we appreciate you all being here today. This last week and weekend I had the opportunity to take some North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) parliamentarians out to Fort Irwin and also to—here we are, to Nellis Air Force Base. And I think they all came away with the same impression that I did, and that was that I wouldn't ever want to take on the American military, not just because we have—we are ahead of almost everybody—ahead of everybody in a technological standpoint, but because also the training is just amazing. And you are to be commended on that.

    One of the things I got to do out there—and Mr. Gibbons was with me when I did that—the Americans that were with the delegation got to see the FA–22 and it looks like a wonderful piece of equipment. But I was looking out on the flight line and here are all these F–15s—which is a wonderful fighter plane—sitting there, and they are 30 years old. And when we are struggling with the budget and to do everything we can with what we have, the question that arose in my mind is do we need the FA–22? Or could we have opened the lines on an F–15 type thing, because I think that is superior to most anything anyone else has for air-to-air combat at least. Is the reason we need the FA–22, is that because the radar and the ground defenses have gotten so much better that we need the stealthiness?
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    And second, are you looking at all at programs like the V–22, which have had enormous problems, and I know the Marine Corps really wants that—still wants that. But is there any point where on a program like that, we just cut our losses and say, you know, we just can't afford to go on with the development of something like this? Or do you have other programs that you think—that you are suggesting we cut in order to put the money somewhere else?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, the—you mentioned, I believe, the V–22, as well, there. And that has been a troubled program, as you know. The Marines and the special operators and others believe that if it can be made to be safe and operate successfully, that it will bring considerable value to our warfighting capabilities. It is in a period of being tested and examined. In the event that it proves not to be a successful test, why, it obviously would be terminated. To the extent it proves successful, everyone is persuaded that it brings value and we would intend to go forward. I have forgotten when the——

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. May.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I think it is sometime this spring or summer.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. May.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. May, Dov thinks that it is going to have another period of examination. With respect to the FA–22, there is no question but that you are right; that the stealth, the speed, offers capabilities not just for air-to-air but for air-to-ground, which are important.
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    Dick Myers, you might want to comment on it.

    General MYERS. Yes. Congressman Hefley, the FA–22, primarily air superiority fighter to replace the F–15 with ground attack capability like the F–15 eventually developed. The F–15 fleet is a good fleet but it is—as you mentioned, it is an old fleet. Early in this program, and I think on more than one occasion, we have looked at alternatives to the FA–22, such as taking the F–15 and totally modifying it. When you do that, you get a capability less than the FA–22 at about the same cost, because it would be expensive.

    As you remember last year, we lost an F–15, I think it was in the Gulf of Mexico. It came apart much like the shuttle Colombia did. It disintegrated at supersonic speeds because of structural failure, because some of the structural components exposed to corrosion over time failed. It is not—the F–15 is not the world's greatest air support machine today. There are others that are superior to it. What makes it superior, of course, are those folks that fly it, the men and women that fly it and that maintain it. So it is a system that is losing its edge. And the FA–22 brings to the fight, as the Secretary says, the ability to get into potential conflict early, because it has the stealth, the maneuverability, and the supercruise that makes the newer ground threats and air threats a lot less hostile. And it can take those on.

    And so I think it is—the whole notion is that you would buy some limited number of these. This would be back to the concept of the high/low mix. You would have some few very expensive airplanes and then more less expensive airplanes, and that is how the mix is going, and the FA–22 would be at the high end.
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    Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you very much.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan.

    Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. And I join my colleagues in thanking Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers for your service to this country at this critical time.

    Mr. Secretary, in 1998, as a member of the Project for the New American Century, you sent a letter to then-President Clinton, calling for regime change in Iraq through military means if necessary. And I would like to read a portion of that letter.

    ''We believe that the United States has the authority under existing U.S. resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the U.S. Security Council.''

    Do you believe that working through the United Nations Security Council with regard to disarming Iraq is a misguided and crippling policy?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. No. I support the President's decision to go through the United Nations.

    Mr. MEEHAN. The——
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. I would add, however, that in life it is rare when one gets unanimity. It seems that almost anything anyone proposes, somebody is not going to like. And so I think the process of going to the United Nations is a useful thing, has been a useful thing. But I think that we probably ought not to expect that in life that we are going to get unanimity.

    Mr. MEEHAN. Sure. Mr. Secretary, today in the Washington Post it highlighted the fact that Saddam Hussein has armed anywhere between 1 and 8 million civilians with semiautomatic rifles, rocket launchers and other military weapons. This militia appears to be designed to fight in cities and towns, street by street. What is being done now to ensure that if we go to war with Iraq, that these civilians will not take arms against our troops; and assuming for a moment that our troops do have to militarily engage armed civilians in the streets of Baghdad, are there any plans currently to use nonlethal technologies to kind of disarm and disperse?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, you are right. There are reports that that is what Saddam Hussein said. That does not make it so. He announced to the world that everything Colin Powell was going to say was a lie before he even knew what he was going to say. He announced that the pictures that were going to be shown were doctored, which is false. He lies just about on every single thing he says. And believing him would be a big mistake.

    I do not know whether or not he has done what he said he is doing. General Franks has a plan that addresses a host of very unpleasant contingencies, and there are a lot of things like that that can go wrong, that can be unpleasant, that can make the task much more complex.
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    With respect to the use of nonlethal riot agents, I regret to say that we are in a very difficult situation. There is a treaty that the United States signed, and there are existing requirements that, without getting into details, require—well, let me put it this way. Absent a Presidential waiver, in many instances our forces are allowed to shoot somebody and kill them, but they are not allowed to use a nonlethal riot control agent under the law. It is a very awkward situation. There are times when the use of nonlethal riot agents is perfectly appropriate, when transporting dangerous people in a confined space; in an airplane, for example; when there are enemy troops, for example, in a cave in Afghanistan, and you know that there are women and children in there with them and they are firing out at you, and you have the task of getting at them, and you would prefer to get at them without also getting at women and children, and noncombatants as you point out.

    The difficulty of writing a rule of engagement so that a soldier, a single human being, a private, a sergeant, knows what to do in that enormously complex—is he going to break the law or not? And we have tangled ourselves up so badly in this issue—Dick Myers and I spent this week, if I am not mistaken, probably an hour, an hour and a half, trying to fashion rules of engagement that would be simple enough so that people who have the task on the front line in a few instances, in a second or two, can make a decision what they can do and what they can't do. And it is very complex, and it is unfortunate in my humble opinion.

    Mr. MEEHAN. Is there any way, Mr. Secretary, we can untangle this I guess within the next month or so?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. We are doing our best to live within the straitjacket that has been imposed on us on this subject, and trying to find ways that people can—that we can write things in a way that people can understand them and function and not break the law and still, in certain instances, be able to use nonlethal riot agents.
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    Do you want to—is that roughly right?

    General MYERS. I think that is roughly right. And then I think to get to the question about combatants and noncombatants, if people take up arms and become combatants then they are subject to the laws of armed conflict. And on the other hand, if they are noncombatants, if the regime were to use civilians as human shields and so forth, a different matter, and you would have to address that differently. And I think we ought to keep that in mind. If they pick up arms and become combatants, then they are combatants and they will be treated as such.

    Human shields, General Franks has thought, tried to think through that very hard, and has worked very diligently with the ground forces and the air forces and those involved to think about ways to handle those situations where you have minimum impact on noncombatants. That is always the goal.

    And I think the other thing is that the people of Iraq, my belief is, from the information I am getting, prefer—will not fight in this way; that the average person will not fight, because they will see this for what it is—and that is to get whatever regime that makes food distribution a problem and a reward in some cases, that prevents medical care across the population in general, and that treats minority pieces of the population in ways that are not right—and I think they will see it in that way.

    And certainly we have been trying to advertise if conflict is called for, that will be the goal. And hopefully those people that will be tempted to pick up arms will say we are not going to do that.
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    Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman who is the Chairman on Projection Forces, Mr. Bartlett.

    Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony, gentlemen.

    Mr. Secretary, I have two questions totally unrelated. The first one deals with the necessity of looking everyplace we spend money to see if it is wisely spent. So I want to talk for just a moment about our efforts in the drug program. I understand we spend roughly about $2 1/2 billion a year on eradication and interdiction. And we destroy a lot of drugs and we interdict a lot of drugs. But in spite of that, there is no shortage of drugs to meet the demand. And I suspect, sir, that if we tripled the amount of money that we spend on eradication and interdiction that there would still be enough drugs on the street to meet the demand. Don't you think it is time that we reevaluate our approach to that problem?

    Second, after 9/11 there was a great wave of patriotism that swept the country and a recognition that gee, even after the Cold War we still do need a military. So there has now been widespread support for increased funding for the military, and we have had some increased funding. But my question is, sir, what kind of confidence do you have that at the end of the day, we will in fact be better off than we were before 9/11?

    I am concerned, sir, that even with the increased funding, that we are now spending money in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan and in Iraq and in North Korea and the Global War On Terrorism. And I am concerned that the additional monies we are giving you may not even be enough money to carry on those operations, so that at the end of the day we may be worse off in the military than we were before. Would you comment on that, sir?
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. First, Mr. Congressman, with respect to the problem of drugs, it is a very difficult problem for the world, for our country. You are quite right that demand is so powerful that despite a lot of effort to deal with the supply part of it, there have been times when it simply has moved the problem from one place to another; and with a lot of effort going into dealing with the supply side, we still see the demand there and the usage go up. So in my view it is the kind of a problem that needs to be tackled from all directions, and it is—really the bulk of the antidrug money is not spent in the Department of Defense. It is spent by, in the case of Colombia, for example, the Department of State, and then in various other agencies.

    General Myers made an important point earlier. There is an intersection between narcotrafficking, hostage-taking, and terrorists. And revolutionaries. And it is hard sometimes to say, well, we are concerned about the terrorists but we are not concerned about the money that they may be getting through hostage taking or through narcotics and what have you. So I think that it is hard to put them into separate little compartments.

    The second question you asked is a tough one. In this world of ours, one could make a case that what we are doing is exactly the right thing. We are using all elements of national power, we are using a 90-nation coalition, we are putting pressure on terrorists, terrorist networks, states that harbor terrorists, and states—terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction. And it is having an effect. There is no question. We can see the chatter. We know the difficulty they are having in transferring money, the difficulty they are having in moving between countries and buying capabilities. In executing terrorist acts we see things that are stopped. We are getting much better intelligence information.
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    The question comes, are we doing a good enough job in terms of education, in terms of persuading young people that they ought not to go to a Madrasa school that teaches terrorism? They ought to go to a Madrasa school that teaches mathematics and things that they can actually use in life. And trying to judge if there are more terrorists being created than are being inhibited or killed or captured or detained, there is no one on the face of the Earth who can answer that question. All I can say is I think that to have put together an 80-nation coalition to work on this problem, and to bring all elements of national power together and each day do a better job of fusing that information and effectively putting pressure on them, is what we know we have to do.

    What, in my view, we are not doing as well as we must do eventually is to find ways to provide assistance to countries that want to see that the circumstances in their countries are changed so that fewer people become terrorists in the first instance. A religion is being hijacked by a small minority of people. And the bulk of the people in that religion are against terrorism. And they, as well as we, are going to have to do a better job of seeing that that minority of that religion is reduced to next to nothing over time.

    Mr. BARTLETT. Are we giving you enough money to do all of these very essential things and to transform the military? Or at the end of the day, will you have taken money from these other pots to carry on these very essential activities so that the military will not be in any better shape than it was at 9/11?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. We believe we have put forward a very good, responsible budget. We believe it has a proper balance between taking care of the wonderful men and women in uniform, seeing that we modernize those things we need to modernize, seeing that we invest in transformation, and seeing that we simultaneously address those risks in terms of operational capabilities. We have spent a lot of time on it. We think it is a good budget. We are going to have to come in for a lot more money in a supplemental, and let there be no doubt about it.
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    Mr. BARTLETT. If we don't fund the supplementals, then our readiness will be at risk.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Oh, yes. We are already pulling the money out of the pots at a clip of about a billion five or a billion six just for the Global War On Terrorism.

    Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

    The distinguished gentleman from Texas, a great Border Patrol chief and a pretty good helicopter crew chief, Silvestre Reyes.

    Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity. And, gentlemen, thank you for joining us here this afternoon.

    Mr. Secretary, I have got several things that I want to ask questions on but I know in five minutes I won't be able to get them in. But one of the things that I am concerned about is the DOD's plans to contract out hundreds and possibly thousands of civilian——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I am sorry, I can't hear you.

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    Mr. REYES. The concern that I have about the Department of Defense plan to contract out thousands of civilian jobs. And I was interested in getting your perspective, since you feel that we are, by allowing our military people that are in their forties and fifties to retire, that we are losing all of that experience at the optimum point in their career. I would submit to you, Mr. Secretary, that we are doing that right now by contracting out. We are losing institutional experience and knowledge. We are allowing our best trained, most knowledgeable civilian workers to leave, and, in some cases, conceivably it could come back to haunt us in terms of a national emergency. What kind of value-added or best-value system would you envision we would have to have in order to maintain a workable civilian work force?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. There are things, for example, that we are doing currently, like making eyeglasses, which could hardly be considered a core competency of the Department of Defense. Cleaning floors in buildings is hardly a core competence of the Department of Defense. What we are trying to do is to look at the things we are currently doing and look at how technologies have changed and see if we can't move out of the Department completely things that are not necessarily activities that the Department has a need to consider as a core competence.

    Mr. REYES. But, Mr. Secretary, those kind of jobs have been gone long ago. We are talking now——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I wish that were true. They haven't. We are still doing a lot of those things.

    Second, the reason that the Department has over time continued to put more military people into nonmilitary jobs and more contractors into civilian employee jobs is because of the difficulty of managing the civilian defense employee base. And it is just a reality. People are—you know, they are intelligent. They look at their circumstance and say, I have got a choice. I have got three choices. I have got a task to do. I could put a military person in there who I can bring him in, he can go to something else later. I can bring in a contractor and I can let him go anytime I want if that need changes, or I can bring in a civilian and have the difficulty. So we need to fix that system so it works better.
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    In terms of the Department of Defense, the goal is to be more efficient and cost less through the use of competitions. And the Office of Management and Budget directs that commercial activities be competed between the government and the private sector and only inherently governmental functions should be exempt from that, according to the Department.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Could I just add, sir, that my friend John Hanley, when he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, pointed out—and it is still true—that whenever we have one of these competitions, it doesn't matter who wins, the price is at least 20 percent lower; which means that when the government itself bids, somehow miraculously the price—and that is to say the cost to the taxpayer—comes down. And the real issue isn't who gets it. The real issue is how much does the taxpayer save.

    Mr. REYES. Yeah, but the problem is in reality when you contract something out and you initially save money, there is no system to come back and maintain that price structure. So we have seen, time after time, the effort to contracting out becomes even more expensive a few years down the road, plus it—and I have seen this myself in my previous career; that you have added charges, surcharges by the contractor if it is going to be after hours, if it is going to be on weekends, if it is an emergency. I am just saying I do not believe that because you have got a civilian, you have got somebody that is a problem for our installations. We have done very well throughout the history of the military by employing dedicated, hardworking, committed civilians, and we are now chucking them out the door, trying to say that we are saving money and trying to say that we have got to find a quote-unquote better way or a streamlined way, without paying attention to what you said, Mr. Secretary, that we are turning these people out in their forties and fifties, at the optimum time of experience and value to the military installations. I see that happening in the installations in my district.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, Congressman, you are absolutely right. We have a wonderful group of civilian employees in the Department of Defense. We have people who are dedicated and talented and hardworking. What we have got to do is to find a way to see that we get the right balance.

    For example, today—and we are going to be coming and we would be happy to work with you on how we can refashion some of these rules—but at the present time, if we go to a college job fair where young people coming out of college, smart, computer technology people, and they want a job, and so we go and interview along with private enterprise, well, what happens? Private enterprise says, ''By golly, you are better at this than people who maybe have been doing it for 20 years because you are just coming right out with an M.A. or a master's or a Ph.D. in computer science. We would like to hire you.'' and the seniority issue isn't really relevant.

    By the same token, we can't offer them a job. We have to hand them a form and say, gee, figure this out, fill it out, then you can compete with the top three, and months and months and months go by, because they are dealing with the United States Government and that is the way the United States Government works. And the company walks up and says you are hired. And we don't get them.

    Now, if we don't fix these rules, we are in trouble because we are not going to be able to attract and retain the best people. And we would be happy to work with you about how we can do that.

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    Mr. REYES. Well, Mr. Secretary, if I can, the problem is young people aren't going to want to come to work for the government because they see the older people getting thrown out as younger, more agile employees are coming in. I don't see that as——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I don't see older people being thrown out in the civilians.

    Mr. REYES. Well, the people in their forties and fifties that are being replaced by contracts and companies——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Oh, I see. If it is competed and they lose the contract. I see your point.

    Mr. REYES. I mean, why would a young person want to go to work for an organization, knowing at some point he or she is going to suffer the same fate?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, there is no way to track it perfectly, but very frequently when there is competition and the contractor wins over the government, the people transfer over there and perform it for them, and that happens quite often as you know. So there are a lot fewer people who lose their job, so to speak, in that environment than I think the impression might be. I can't guarantee that, but I know that that occurs in some instances.

    Mr. REYES. Well, somebody has said that they are going to—the administration plans on cutting the civilian work force by 20,000 or a third or something. I forget what the newspaper said.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. I haven't heard that.

    Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. And another distinguished gentleman from Texas, Mr. Thornberry.

    Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Secretary, you ended your testimony with a statement that I did not find in your written testimony. I think you said, ''I feel deeply about the urgency to transform the Department.'' That feeling of urgency is something that I share, and it seems to me that creating a culture of innovation within the Department is more important than what we buy or even how we invest some of our research dollars. And you listed in your statement several things such as organizational flexibility, some personnel flexibility reforms that you talked about, and some others maybe you didn't talk about, some other things such as training and education, lifelong, career-long education, which seems to me to be the crucial elements in creating this culture of innovation.

    Mr. THORNBERRY. I guess what I want to ask is, how important do you think these nonprocurement items are to creating the kind of department you would like to create, and to be a bit more practical about it, how does this rank on your list of priorities?

    I mean, trying to think for a second about you having to worry about the Global War On Terrorism in Iraq, and tensions in other parts of the world. When you try to change the personnel system inside the Department, you are going to have more fighting on your hands than most of us would like to deal with.
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    And so, looking at the broader scope of your responsibilities, is it worth taking that fight on? Where does it rank in your priority as far as trying to create this culture of innovation and transform in the Department?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. The short answer is, yes, it is worth taking it on, in my view, sir. If I were to put, on a scale of ten being the most important and one being the least important, I would put things, platforms, down near the bottom, and I would put the culture and people up near the top.

    I would guess that the single most important thing that General Myers and General Pace and Paul Wolfowitz and I have done, and the President is, over the past two years, spend an enormous amount of time thinking through who the key people will be in the critical posts, and who they will have around them. It is—either there is an attitude that is the right attitude about recognizing the nature of the 21st century or there isn't.

    And we have spent an enormous amount of time trying to find people who understand that. And I believe we have done that in many, many cases. And so how do they then deal with this great institution? And it is a wonderful institution. And every time I say something about its imperfections, I cringe a little, because I don't like to do that. It is just an amazing—I suppose it is the biggest institution on the face of the earth in many respects.

    But, the truth has a certain virtue. And despite the wonderful people and the wonderful things that this institution does for the world in contributing, contributing to peace, to stability, the fact remains it is like turning a giant ship. And we have got it started turning. And it takes time. And it takes people on that ship who want it to turn, who want to calibrate it in the right direction.
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    And the people are, walking away, the single most important thing. And they have to be able to deal down, just as it is critically important that Dov Zakheim get the financial institutions and management systems in this institution to work so that managers can look down and see what the effects of their acts are, which we can't today, we can't track. Most of the financial systems are designed to report to Congress, not to gain information and knowledge.

    But we have to have the ability to lead people and see that the culture is changed. So, you know, people have said to me ever since I got in the Department this second time, golly, do you really want to do that? Wouldn't it be a lot easier not to have a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)? Wouldn't it be easier to just sit back and fight the Global War On Terrorism or to do something else.

    I think that if anything, September 11th and what is going on in this world with the terrible, terrible danger we face with the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks being capable of imposing death and destruction on innocent men, women and children in this country and in our interests across the globe, creates a sense of urgency that we do not transform, not that we throw in the towel and say that we are too busy to transform, but we must do it.

    Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. Dr. Snyder.

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    Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I appreciate you being here. I don't know if you see this as a gauntlet of torture or a debating society, but we really appreciate your time here.

    First, just a comment. In your opening comments, Mr. Secretary, you mentioned flexibility. One of the areas I really encourage you and our commander-in-chief to stand behind in terms of flexibility is Cooperative Threat Reduction moneys. There is—that may be the cheapest amount of safety that we can buy in the world. There is broad support in the American public and in the Congress-obviously Senator Lugar is now chairman, but there is broad support.

    There are, in my opinion, a small number of Members of the Congress that want to put conditions and micromanage, and I just encourage you to stick by your guns and be willing to threaten a veto over the defense bill to get the kind of language that you all need.

    General Myers, Senator Bob Graham a day or two before his heart surgery, and we all wish him well, but I attended a forum where he was a speaker. And he gave a ballpark figure that he thought that there was about a hundred thousand terrorists in the world. Is that a ballpark number that you think is in the range?

    General MYERS. Congressman, you know I would hesitate to venture a guess at this point. I mean, I think we know in terms of al-Qaeda, there are thousands that were trained in Afghanistan. I think we have a pretty good understanding of those numbers.

    I would just hesitate to say, because it changes every day. Some are rounded up, some decide that that is not what they want to do, as other people decide that is what they want to do.
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    Dr. SNYDER. I appreciate that. The reason the number stuck in my mind was because the President, in the State of the Union Address, I think he gave a total of about 3,000 people that had been rounded up or killed. If Senator Graham's number is right, then we have got a long ways to go.

    Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you, I did not understand the exchange between you and Mr. Spratt over this language in your written statement that you amplified on, this 2004 budget does not include funds for operations in the Global War On Terror.

    My understanding of what happened last year is that there was resistance from the Congress because of—for want of a better word—we referred to the ten billion dollar slush fund, but that there was reluctance to give that kind of no-strings-attached authority.

    But, as General Myers just acknowledged, thousands of people are still out there. Senator Graham thinks maybe a hundred thousand people are still out there. In your statement, you say this war is going to go on for years to come. Why would we not have some kind of articulated amount of dollars in the budget—not just a total amount, but an estimate of force or fuel or food or transport?

    I mean, rather than doing this by supplemental, because this is going to be ongoing costs for years to come. This sounds like very poor planning. Maybe it is misleading to the American people of what the costs, the true cost of our defense budget is.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Congressman, it isn't misleading. Indeed, we said what we thought that was. We said, when we put the ten billion dollars up, that it was not a slush fund, that is a phrase that you can be sure that we didn't use.

    Dr. SNYDER. If I can interrupt you. Please talk about this, as we are heading into this budget year.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I will. I will get there. But, the ten billion dollars we said would cover the cost of the Global War On Terrorism for the first period of months before the Congress went on recess, had Christmas, came back in session, got organized and began to look at the subject of a supplemental sometime in February or March.

    And we were about right. We figured it at about a billion to a billion and a half a month. And what was it going for? We said it was going to go for the combat air patrols flying over the United States, we said it was going to provide for the force protection of the United States, we said it was going to provide for the funds that we were spending in Afghanistan to do that.

    We could not say that it would necessarily go for train and equip activities in the country of Georgia, because we knew that we would be doing train and equip, because those are things where we don't have to use our forces. If they are willing to get trained and equipped to help fight terrorism, our country is better off having them do that. And we are training people in Yemen and the like.

    Now, we can't know which country is going to agree, but we can know in advance that we are going to engage in that type of activity. We had those things.
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    Now, the current situation. We did not put money in it this year for the Global War On Terrorism, nor did we put money in for the cost of the build-up to support the diplomacy with respect to Iraq.

    Now, one can say, well, why didn't you? Well, because we didn't get it last time, number one. The same argument would have been made, a slush fund, which is, I think, improper. And it is not possible to predict what it would cost because we built that budget and submitted it to OMB a couple of months ago back in December and November. And it was built over the preceding year.

    What is evolving now wasn't knowable. So, in terms of the build-up on Iraq, we couldn't predict that, because we didn't know what the President would do. In terms of the Global War On Terror, we could have.

    Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Chairman, if I may make a comment to you. I think we ought to pursue this, maybe some of us who are more junior Members don't understand this. But, I mean, when I talk to people back home in Arkansas, the number one goal they want us to go after is the war on terrorism. Yet we don't have it in the President's budget proposal. I am confused here. If the Secretary can't trust us or we can't trust the Secretary or something, but, somehow we have to budget for this.

    The CHAIRMAN. Well, I will just tell the gentleman, we did pass the ten. And it turns out, their estimate was fairly accurate. They said this will carry us through March. That roughly works out to a billion six a month. And they did describe the air caps, the transportation, the call-ups, basically operational costs that were kind of the ham and eggs costs of operations that they could expect, because they were undertaking them, and Congress, as a whole, did not fund it. So them's the facts.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. It is certainly not a matter of us trusting the committee. We came up and gave the committee every piece of information that we conceivably could. And over the period with all of the committees in both houses that are involved, it ended up not happening is all.

    Dr. SNYDER. Just one final comment, because I have been talking about the budget back home. There is a lot of inquiries about it. I did not realize when I was doing my press calls since the President's budget came out that I need to go back now and say, oh, by the way this budget does not cover the operations for the war on terrorism.

    Now, that is not how the people of Arkansas, I think, see the President's budget.

    The CHAIRMAN. Just one last point for my friend. That is true. But they did include them last year, and the Congress as a whole, I mean both bodies, rejected that. So they didn't come back. But, in reality, I would just tell the gentleman with respect to the last number of major contingencies, the budget regularly does not include those, and they are always funded in the so-called supplemental. The problem is, you are reaching in the cash drawer, literally, and pulling out cash that is designed and was intended to go for training and repairs and lots of other things.

    So even when you replenish the cash drawer, you have had to cancel training rotations, and it is a very messy and very inconvenient way to do business.

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    So I would say this, Vic, I think this exigency that we are in right now is going to drive us and the DOD together, and maybe there is going to be more trust going in both directions. But, I do have to say, they did come to us, they described what they needed, and they were pretty accurate on the time line. And it would have carried us just about to March, which is what they described at the time.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Chairman, may I make one more comment? As I listen to you, and I listen to the chairman, the global war—first of all, the chairman is exactly right. Wars tend to be funded by supplementals because they are not predictable and you can't quantify them a year or six months or even four months in advance.

    The Global War On Terror, however, is kind of in between. It is not the base budget, but it is going to last over a period of time. It has already, it is very likely into the future for some period, which is not knowable. But, what is knowable is a reasonable projection as to what it will cost over a 12-month period. So it is a new kind of a thing for us.

    And maybe that is why in this case, the first time we came up, it didn't—it didn't take.

    Dr. SNYDER. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank you. And just one last point. This committee did approve that ten billion dollars. It got—it got stopped at a later point, but we did approve that.

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    The very distinguished gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons.

    Mr. GIBBONS. That you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you for your patience here today. I know it has been a long afternoon, and you have been diligent in answering our questions. We appreciate that.

    I do want to congratulate you on submitting a capabilities-based budget, along with the new strategies that you have got going. I think that is an outstanding approach to helping us better understand our abilities. And as we kind of scratch through the surface here and target in on some of these programs, I just want to look at some of the macro concepts that are in here.

    And one, I see that for the fiscal 2004 budget, we are looking at DOD outlays as 3.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Is that 3.4 percent inclusive of supplementals, or exclusive of supplementals?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. It does not include the supplementals. The number there is the base budget that we have presented today.

    Mr. GIBBONS. Would you mind, then, getting us a revised answer to include the supplemental spending in terms of DOD outlays, in terms of our GDP spending, give us a better ratio of how much we are spending with regard to what we are putting into DOD.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. We don't have the outlays yet for 2003. And there is no supplemental yet for 2003, so we won't know until Congress acts on the 2003 supplemental. But, we can calculate that for prior years. And, of course, the outlay tends to be less than the budget authority.
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    Mr. GIBBONS. All right. I had a question for Dr. Zakheim, and I appreciate your presence here as well. As you know, many members of this committee have been very interested and have worked on a multi-year program plan, procurement plan, for the C–130. Have you signed out or signed off on that plan, and if you have done so, when will the required notification be sent up here to Congress?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. I don't think yet that it is finalized; am I correct. It is not—it is not final yet. Once it is, and of course that goes through the chain of my colleague, Pete Aldrich, the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Then, of course, notifications come.

    Mr. GIBBONS. Right. Do you have any estimated time for approval on that and signing off on it?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. I have been told that we are awfully close. I can't give you a precise week, but we are not talking about months and months and months.

    Mr. GIBBONS. So, within the next several days you would say?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. I think it is a little more than days, but I think it is a little less than months.

    Mr. GIBBONS. Okay. I had one final question for General Myers. And your service to our Nation has always been appreciated. For many briefings you have discussed, when have you come before this committee, the need for Congress to act to help preserve our training ranges and training requirements for the future.
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    Can you describe the problems you are having now that are associated with preserving these ranges, and kind of give the measures that are needed or you expect Congress to do to enable these changes in preservations.

    General MYERS. You bet. Let me tag on to what the Secretary said earlier. I think people can be proud of what the Department of Defense has done in terms of stewardship of the environment. We work that very hard. I think if you check with most states, with Federal agencies, you will find that that is a problem that I know as a commander I worked very hard, I know it is being worked by commanders in the field today very hard.

    The problem is that some of the acts to protect various species are being now used in a way that I don't think they were intended, by people taking these into courts and stopping certain actions. And the actions that we are concerned most about are those that impact our training. And the worst thing we can do to our people, worse than inadequate pay, worse than bad housing, worse than anything is to leave them inadequately trained, so when the President calls on them to go forward, that they can't perform their mission in a way that they are capable of performing it.

    That is a big problem. The Migratory Bird Act is one act that we need some relief from. There are a couple of others, as well. We talked about that last year, as well. We got great support out of this committee, but unfortunately, it didn't carry the day. But this year that is more important than ever, or we are going to send—we have the potential to send our young men and women into potential combat without adequate training.

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    Mr. GIBBONS. In the State of Nevada alone, we have the Endangered Species Act. It impacts training there at Nellis on the ranges, archeological sites that I actually give great credit to the Air Force for preserving, it has done great.

    But Congress will need to take some action, I believe, in order to allow the services, that would be the point I am trying to make. Congress needs to act in order to relieve your requirements under the Act.

    General MYERS. I think that is absolutely required. That is our view as well, that if we are to preserve our training environment so we can train in a realistic way and prepare our people for potential conflict, while at the same time taking care of the environment, they are not mutually exclusive, and I think we can do that. We have done it in the past. It is the recent court cases I think that have made this a lot more problematic.

    Mr. GIBBONS. One final comment, Mr. Chairman, I will let it go. I think the added additional burden and cost of meeting some of these requirements has taken away some of the resources needed for our services to be able to train and properly support our men and women in the field who are defending this Nation. So I think this is an important issue for this committee to take up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Tauscher.

    Mrs. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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    Mr. Secretary, General Myers, thank you for your dedicated hard service. And I would also like to send my thanks to the people at the Pentagon who withstood a terrible attack, well over 15, 16 months ago, who basically all went to work the next day, those who were blessed to survive and who are represented by your very able staff sitting behind you, who are kind of the unsung heroes, both in uniform and out.

    Please thank them on our behalf for their continued dedicated service.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you very much.

    Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, I was concerned to read in the Los Angeles Times on Monday that the Pentagon has launched a $1.26 billion program to design computers to determine when nuclear weapons might be used to destroy deeply-buried targets, potentially harboring chemical, biological and even nuclear agents.

    At a time when this committee has not yet received a report required in the 2003 authorization bill on the potential uses of the robust earth penetrator or whether or not we can still use conventional weapons to defeat hardened targets, I am deeply concerned that the administration is pushing the envelope on trying to design a new generation of smaller, more usable nuclear weapons, creating a more unstable and dangerous world.

    Disconnected the practical use of conventional force, diplomacy or inspections that we used in Afghanistan, and to deal with Iraq and North Korea, the administration, through a series of pronouncements from the nuclear posture review of the national security strategy, and most recently the national strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction, has outlined a security posture for the United States that puts emphasis on preemptive strikes and on the offensive use of nuclear weapons.
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    I would like to know, A, whether or not this $1.26 billion computer program is under development; and B, what circumstances you believe would justify the use of nuclear weapons by the United States, considering I thought we had a no-first-use policy in this country.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I am going to have to get back to you with details on that, because I am trying to reach into the duffel bag here and recall what element of the classified nuclear posture review someone might have reported on in the Los Angeles Times.

    Mrs. TAUSCHER. Well, I have both the story and the request for proposal (RFP). The RFP is a Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) RFP, which I have got a copy of, talking about this $1.26 billion computer program.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. First of all, I do not know what that is referring to. Second, I know there is—I am—you never know everything, but I am 99- 9/10 positive there is no new weapon development of the nature that you are describing.

    To the extent research is being done on deep penetrator, that is entirely possible. And it is a growing problem for the world. If one looks across the globe at the number of countries that are doing things underground that make it exceedingly difficult to get at them, we are looking at a whole host of things as to how we can better understand what is taking place in terms of information. And it is—the problem of tunneling and underground activities is going to be—is a serious problem for us today, and it is going to continue to be a serious problem in the future.
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    Mrs. TAUSCHER. I acknowledge that it is a problem. But it is not clear to me that it is a problem solved by the use of nuclear weapons. If you could just address this issue of what would justify, in your mind, the use of nuclear weapons by the United States, considering that we have a no-first-use policy, even if we got to a situation where we spent $1.26 billion, modeled a way for us to justify the fact that we needed to do it.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Again, I would like to underline, so that the record is very clear that I cannot confirm what you are saying as fact, you read in the Los Angeles Times. And I wouldn't want it to go out of here with the world thinking that it is necessarily correct, simply because it is in a newspaper.

    A comment on no-first-use. You state that as U.S. Policy. I am trying to think if the—this Administration has commented on that. But, historically, we have never had a no-first-use policy. Our policy as a country, for example, during the era of the Soviet Union was that they had much greater conventional capability and the advantage of attack.

    And one of the critical elements in the deterrent for the Western allies was that we explicitly did not rule out first use.

    So throughout that entire Cold War period, a war which we won with patience and effective deterrence and investment, our policy was to the other side, don't be certain we will not use them, because if you use overwhelming conventional capability, we will not assure you that we would not stop that invasion by the use of nuclear weapons. And it worked.

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    Mrs. TAUSCHER. Well, Mr. Secretary, I am looking forward to continuing to engage you on this issue, because you may be correct, that we do not have a formalized policy. But, I can tell you that I believe that my constituents in California do not believe that the United States should use nuclear weapons first, and nor do they believe that we should preemptively have weapons that we are trying to make smaller and more portable to go after hardened targets. That is why in the conference we appropriated $15 million for a study to look at this issue, and now it looks like, whether you believe the L.A. Times or not, as a Californian I have to, it looks like in the budget, there is a $1.26 billion to strap a bunch of computers together to model how we might use nuclear weapons against hardened targets.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, once again, you use the phrase that ''not making such weapons.'' and I am reasonably confident, 99 and nine-tenths, that we are not making such weapons.

    So those that read the paper and are concerned about that can sleep well tonight.

    Mrs. TAUSCHER. I will send you a letter. I have C–5s in my district at Travis Air Force Base. They have done just a phenomenal job. They have done a third of the missions and lifted half of the cargo for Enduring Freedom. They have got an avionics package upgrade that we need to do, but we are only budgeting about half of them. So, I am going to write to you and not take any more of the committee's time, and urge that to move along a little faster.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Fair enough. Can I make one last comment, please. You said your constituents do not want nuclear weapons used. No sane person would like to see those weapons used. They are—they have been used twice in anger, what 55, 58 years ago.
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    And it is a wonderful thing that humanity has not used those weapons again in anger in that—in the 58 years or whatever it is. That is an amazing accomplishment. I don't think in the history of mankind there has been a situation where there has been a weapon of that type that has not been used in that period of time.

    Why is that? It is, I think, because people are respectful of their lethality. And that is a good thing. And I think that successive administrations of both political parties since 1945 have engaged in conflicts, various places around the world, where those weapons could have been used and were not. I think that that is not bad.

    Mrs. TAUSCHER. Well, my constituents at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Sandia, who made those weapons with Los Alamos, made them the best so that we would never have to use them.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. And from a Chairman from another part of California who does not have to believe the Los Angeles Times, I think, Mr. Secretary, you have been brought into some degree into a debate that we had in the conference over the use of penetrators, these with underground penetration capability. And the idea was, that if deterrence does work, you don't want to allow the guy who pulls the trigger and kills hundreds of thousands of civilians by launching an attack against the United States or our allies to be able to then go underground to the facilities that he has constructed to make himself safe, and escape any of the repercussions of his own activities.

    And our argument, of course, for those who wanted to see this capability at least explored, was that that is a species of deterrence. And so that—that was a debate that we had. And so we did agree to have reports on the—on the effects of underground—these underground penetrators. But, it was also, as I believe, directed that there would be a report on the devastation that would be caused by one of the leaders who might, in fact, cause a nuclear incident above ground, and kill hundreds of thousands of people above ground.
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    So we had our conference debate on this. I know we will engage at a future time. I thank the gentlelady for her contribution.

    And let me move to Ft. Bragg, and that gentleman who represents a lot of special operators so effectively, Mr. Hayes.

    Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And gentlemen, thank you for being here. There have been no such reports in the Fayetteville Observer or the Concord Tribune up to this point. Focusing a minute on special operations, and let me frame the question by saying all of our men and women in every uniform have distinguished themselves tremendously. But for the moment, for special operators, there have been some incredibly capable things and accomplishments that they have done.

    In your budget, on page six, you have added a 1.5 billion plus-up, which is most appropriate. How are you going to fill those billets and still maintain and increase the standards and capabilities of those folks? What is the plan for the money? How are we going to do this?

    General MYERS. In terms of—the budget does many things. One of the things it does, of course, and you would understand this immediately is that we have got to reconstitute some of their equipment. And a lot of helicopters being the big issue, we are right against the stop there. So you will see some of the money is going to the helicopters, CH–47, MH–47, Echos, some Blackhawks specially configured for special forces, as well. So that is—and some 130s. That is part of it.
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    The other part is to, if the vision is to give special operators and special operations command responsibility for our global vision on the counterterrorism fight, then we have got to posture them worldwide appropriately. And that is going to require a plus-up in personnel in the various, theater command centers. So part of it is that, as well. Part of it is also for a plus-up at the headquarters in Tampa, because they are right now an organized train and equip headquarters, not an operational headquarters, if you will. The operations part has been at Ft. Bragg.

    And so there is going to be an operations part that will be stood up with people that will come in from the other services to stand that up.

    Mr. HAYES. How are we going to advertise and fill those slots?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. That won't be a problem. Let me add two things. Some of that money has to go to finding ways that we can reduce the footprint of special operators and get them to move faster. The time that is available to deal with some of the more difficult threats we face around the world is not a leisurely week or two or three or four; it is hours and days.

    And that costs money to increase that ability to respond more quickly. And in many instances it doesn't permit a large footprint. And we are trying to find ways to reduce the size of that footprint, and that costs money.

    General MYERS. The majority of those billets, Congressman Hayes, if memory serves me right, are from the United States Army. And the Army has already agreed to shifting those billets over to special operations command business.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. One other thing we are doing is we are taking some of the Tier-three activities and developing some Army and Marine and other service capabilities to do some of those things. We are trying to avoid using special operators for things that others can do as well. For example, training the Afghanistan Army, training and equipping the Georgian forces that we have been working with. We tended to use special operators because they are so good at it.

    But there are plenty of people in the Army and the Marines who are not special operators who can do those jobs. And we are also, in the case of protection for President Karzai of Afghanistan, we have taken the special operators out and transferred it to a contractor, that is former special operators, but there are lots of things that we can do to see that we increase their research and speed and agility.

    Mr. HAYES. I have got a nice book that we put together with your help, and Jennifer Thompson on my staff and others that show what you all need. Let's get some more money to do it.

    Next question. Privatization. No question about it, there are some good things being done. We have had five A–76 projects at Ft. Bragg, four of them stayed in-house, kind of keeping people stirred up, and sometimes unnecessarily. How can we keep from having that get people wrapped around the anchor chain and still get the job done?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Well, obviously A–76, which has been the standard way of doing this, is not the only way to do this. And we are, indeed, exploring other ways to address the privatization issue.
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    You know, the Secretary mentioned earlier that some folks who—if the government doesn't keep the jobs, they become contractors. It is probably worth noting that in England, they did the same thing with their Ministry of Defense, and ultimately the unions themselves quietly came back to the ministry and said, you know, our people are actually doing better by moving out in certain cases, because they get different kinds of benefits and so on.

    So the key is, can we do it in a less cumbersome way? Can we do it in a way that saves the taxpayer money? Again, it doesn't matter who wins it. Like you pointed out, a lot of these jobs stay with the government.

    Mr. HAYES. Thank you, sir. And last question and I will close. Mr. Secretary, when you are talking to some of your dear friends in the press, ask them what the cost prior to September 11th was, what their budget would have been for not aggressively pursuing a war on terrorism. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews.

    Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank each of you three gentlemen for your service and for your patience today.

    A lot of people say that the world changed on September 11th. I respectfully disagree.

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    I don't think the world changed much at all, but our awareness of it changed rather rapidly. But I don't think we changed our awareness quite enough yet. And I offer two observations and then a question.

    This question of how much money we have allocated for the war against terrorism confuses the operation in Afghanistan with the war against terrorism. You can make a good case that almost everything in the defense budget is relevant to the war against terrorism.

    If the determination is made that extinguishing a terrorist sanctuary somewhere requires the use of air power or naval power or special forces, then some portion of that existing budget is going to go for that purpose.

    The second suggestion I would make—I agree with Mr. Thornberry about the urgency of transformation. And I think one of the tools that we could use on the committee and the Department could use in public discourse is a sort of weighted average, where you could take the expenditures we are presently making on various weapons systems, aspects of our budget, and multiply it by a factor that is assigned based on the value of the mission that that weapons system or aspect of the budget could accomplish and how important that is.

    My own observation would be that 1960s-era weapons systems designed to win a ground war in Western Europe would have a very low value. When multiplied by their very large dollar figures, would yield a very small product.

    On the other hand, tools for information dominance, for rapid forward deployment and similar tools that I think would be incredibly relevant for the war against terrorism, should be assigned a much higher value, and I think if you analyze the budget that way, you would find that our priorities are skewed in the wrong direction. Would you care to comment on that?
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I think it is an interesting observation. As a matter of fact, we have spent a good deal of time, and we have got us a group of insiders and outsiders working right now on developing metrics for the Department. The Department seems not to have many ways of measuring what we are doing or how well we are doing it.

    Our information systems are poor, our financial management systems are poor. The people focused on this are in the process of establishing these metric so that—because of the truth. The truth is what you measure improves. It gets better. And either you find a way to do that and track it month-to-month, day-to-day, or you don't.

    And there is no question, but that there are a good many things that we do that don't get—wouldn't get the weighted— .

    Mr. ANDREWS. I think it proves the point for transformation, which I would urge you to keep pursuing. The question I have for you is the far more immediate question. And within the balance of what propriety and respect for classified information would let you do, I think it is very important that we dissuade this notion we hear in the popular media that, quote, going it alone in Iraq is even a remote possibility.

    I am confident that Secretary Powell's powerful presentations today at the United Nations will yield a formal declaration of support from the UN should conflict be necessary. But, I wonder if you could outline for us the activities for military cooperation that are already in place, that are already committed by allies of the United States, to the extent that concerns about confidentiality and classified information let you do that.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, you are certainly right. We have a nontrivial number of countries that have already agreed, quite apart from any second resolution, that are willing to participate with military combat and support capabilities. We have a number of countries two or three times that that are close to that.

    We have a very large number that have agreed to participate as part of a coalition of the willing, by providing access, basing, overflight and that type of thing. We have another group of countries that are willing to do it only if there is a second resolution at the UN. They say, although the political cover, if you will, that they would get by knowing the number of countries and the names of the countries, that are able to participate or willing to participate would certainly I think bring some of them in regardless of whether there is a second resolution.

    And then there is another pretty good group of countries that are indicating that they want to help in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq in the coalition to assist in reconstruction.

    Then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect, I believe.

    Mr. ANDREWS. I see my time is up. We very much appreciate your continuing articulation of that position. Thank you very much.

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    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The distinguished gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs. Davis.

    Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I would just like to say thank you for the job that you are doing on our global war, and especially to our men and women in the military, who are just making us prouder and prouder every day. I just add my thanks as the rest of my colleagues.

    Mr. Secretary, you know I am going to the ship building account. I am just really pleased to see that one billion plus go in for the CVN–21. I think that given the fact that sea bases are what we are looking at in these global wars, that is a wise decision and I really appreciate it.

    But what does concern me, and I appreciate the seven new. What does concern me is the 26 ships that you are retiring, dropping us down to 291, and then being, I believe, 2009 when we get to 305.

    I heard what you said to the gentleman from Mississippi, that rather than look at the number of ships, look at what the ships can do. Based on that, what do you see as the proper size of the Navy to fulfill the requirements in your—I think you outlined it in your defense planning guide.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I am knowledgeable and aware of what the Chief of Naval Operations has said, and I consider him to be a truly outstanding officer and individual who has excellent judgment. I am personally inclined to defer a judgment on a number until I see the mix.
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    What we are doing at the present time I am convinced will help our Department do a vastly better job. And we are in the process of developing joint concepts of operations, which we can then test activities against, and look at the services and have them, in a sense, compete to perform tasks that need to be done jointly on behalf of a combatant commander for a range of different types of scenarios.

    At that time, when we have that, sometime early this year, a first cut at it, we will then begin to test against that the various services' capabilities and platforms and ideas. And out of that, I believe, will fall answers with respect to what the Navy ought to look like—now, the Navy is going to look like it looks today for a long time, the lead times are so long on these.

    But, I think we will have a better idea of what the mix of capabilities we need in the Navy in the outyears. It is awfully hard to look past five or ten years. These ships last, as you well know, decades, and thank goodness they do. But, their need is not going to disappear, and I am going to defer on a specific number until I develop more conviction.

    Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And I will be watching it closely, as you know. And Dr. Zakheim, did you have a comment that you wanted to make?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. In terms of the ships that are leaving the fleet, this isn't a particularly new approach. These were identified by the Chief of Naval Operations. To give you largest class, it was the Spruance Class. They were built in the mid 1970s. And they really—of course they are decent ships, and I am pretty sure a lot of navies in the world would want them.
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    But relative to our missions today, they really don't bring all of that much to the table. You remember Admiral Zumwalt when he was Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), cut the force down from 1,000 to 500. So, relative to that kind of radical slice, this isn't really that large a cut at all.

    Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, if we had 500, I wouldn't be asking the questions.

    Mr. Secretary, if we can go back to—I just want to make sure, and I don't want this to be combative, I just want to make sure I understand a comment that you made earlier when you said that—I want to make sure I get you right—that Congress has not given DOD enough ability to manage its accounts.

    Then, right after your statement, General Myers said that—I don't know if he said it or if I read it in his written statement—that he cited the extraordinary success of the Millennium Challenge '02 as critical to transforming DOD.

    And if my memory serves me right, it was just last year that I had to work with my Virginia colleagues to restore, I think it was $70 million to the Millennium Challenge, '02 because that had been cut by DOD.

    Is that the type of congressional interference you are referring to when we start doing things like that?

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Certainly not. My goodness gracious. We have increased the funds for the joint forces command and for the types of things that you are talking about in this budget by a significant percentage. And I think—I don't know what I said precisely, but I know what my testimony said. And it was that we do have a problem operating the Department. There are an awful lot of restrictions on us.

    Some of them are self-imposed, some of them are procedures that have just grown up like barnacles in the Department. We don't need any legislative relief at all. There are, however, in a number of instances, places where we do need legislative relief.

    And, no one has a monopoly on wisdom. This Congress and this committee and the appropriators have, in many instances, given guidance to the Department and direction to the Department, which is their proper right under the Constitution, that has resulted in improvements in our military capabilities, let there be no doubt.

    What we need is to have that exchange back and forth, so that we together find the right answers. And that is why we have spent so much time in the recent months meeting with Members and meeting with staffs, to try to see that we got that interaction going. My hope is that before this committee or other committees of the Congress make changes in a closed room without our having a chance to talk to them about them, the way that the Congress is having a chance to talk to us as we build the budget, that we will have a crack at some discussing and try to give a sense of what we think it could do to the coherence and the balancing of the risk that we have tried to take.

    And that means that we would like to be a part of that process. We would like to be a part of the conference process so that no one goes into a dark room, a closed room, I mean, and makes a set of decisions. Then we discover them the next day and we didn't have a chance to say, wait a minute, do you realize that this will have that effect?
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    Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Sounds fair, Mr. Secretary. But most of us don't get in that dark room either.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Congresswoman Davis, the increase is more than 55 percent from last year to this year.

    Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentlelady. And the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Marshall.

    Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to serving with you, and I want to thank the Secretary and General Myers for all they have done for our country. I do that on behalf of my constituents. I come from middle Georgia. My district has employees in Robins Air Force Base, Ft. Benning, Ft. Stewart, Ft. Gordon. I trained at Ft. Stewart for advanced infantry, and then Benning for NCO school, Ranger school and jump school. So it is a personal interest of mine to represent those areas well.

    I am one who thinks that if we are going to go into Iraq, sooner is better than later for many reasons, take more than five minutes for me to explain my justification for that. Certainly don't want to do it too soon, and don't want to do it without our allies in tow and without Security Council approval, et cetera.

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    I think that having allies in tow and Security Council approval is something that is important to the overall war on terrorism.

    Mr. Secretary, you mentioned that a larger objective, a long-term objective is to have those kids in the Madrassas learning math instead of hatred of the United States, that in the long-run, cutting off the supply of terrorists is something that is strategically very important to us. And yet, I understand that last week, if I understood the exchange earlier correctly, you and General Myers spent an hour and a half trying to figure out rules of engagement because you were troubled by the use of nonlethal force when the enemy is engaged.

    To me, at least, I have to believe that one of the things that you are thinking about is how to do this in Iraq causing the least damage to the long-term strategic objective of not fomenting more angry terrorists and kids that want to kill Americans.

    And so I have to assume that one of the things you are considering is how to do this with the least force, as the military always does, and using nonlethal force from time to time. Am I correct about that?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Your phraseology suggested that we were troubled by the use of nonlethal force. That would be a terrible misunderstanding. But what we were trying to do, is to find ways that nonlethal force, that is to say, riot agents, for example, could be used within the law and within the treaty.

    And that is a difficult thing to do given the treaty that has been signed by the—it is a treaty, is it not?
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    General MYERS. Yes.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. That has been signed by the United States and the other addendum or attachments or agreements or understandings that attach thereto.

    We agree with you that it is important that the—that force be measured, force be proportionate, force be designed in a way that it enables you to achieve your military goals with the least conceivable interference with innocent people and noncombatants.

    Mr. MARSHALL. Well, to the extent that we can have any impact on giving you the tools to go in there and do it the way you want to do it using measured, nonlethal force, then you should ask us, and I am sure that we would be willing to move fairly quickly.

    I should simply say as well that Robins Air Force Base does stand ready and willing to handle the new platform for the J-Stars.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Bradley.

    Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all gentlemen for your fine words this afternoon and for your long years of service. And I also thank you for your commitment and for the commitment of all of the men and women who serve under you to protect the safety of Americans.
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    My district includes the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. They do an excellent job of helping to maintain our nuclear deterrent in their mission. And also I appreciated your words this afternoon with regard to the National Guard.

    At some point in time in the future, where it is not so late in the day, I look forward to having further conversation with you about that. Thank you again.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you very much.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Meek.

    Mr. MEEK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Once again, it is an honor to serve on the committee. Mr. Secretary, General, Comptroller, pleasure to have an opportunity to hear some of the comments and suggestions, especially as we move forward in this time of conflict or possible conflict.

    I wanted to ask a question. Last year, I didn't have an opportunity to not only serve on this committee, but even be in the Congress, but I was an outsider and quite a few things that I did pay very close observation to. I understand last year that DOD in this Congress authorized an under secretary position for intelligence.

    And as we start to have the debate within things that you can discuss with the American people about the safety of troops abroad and especially now in Iraq, intelligence was one of the big issues, as it relates to not only homeland security, but troops abroad.
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    How are the responsibilities changing now, within the parameters which you can discuss with us, to give the American people and also this committee that DOD is doing everything it can to make sure that those individuals return home? Because I can tell you, there is no—how would you say—I am not—I wasn't a military son or whatever the case may be, but, watching these men and women leave to protect our country was quite tear jerking and emotional for many Americans. And if you could speak within the parameters of sharing with us and the American people of how far we have moved in that area.

    Maybe it could be some of the testimony that Secretary Powell shared with the security council today because of that office and what it is doing to protect our troops.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, thank you, Congressman Meek.

    When I came back to the Department two years ago, it was clear that the Department was deeply involved as a part of the Intelligence Community with the Central Intelligence Agency and the other elements of intelligence gathering.

    And we have the National Reconnaissance Office, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), Army and Navy, Air Force Intelligence, we have the Defense Intelligence Agency, and I am sure I have forgotten something. But we have these national security agencies and others. And they all do a wonderful job.

    And yet the task is not so much—there are two tasks. One is having data and information. And the other is having it in the right place, in the right time, with the kind of coherence and analytical backdrop to it.
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    So the reason we recommended and appreciate the Congress approving an Under Secretary for Intelligence is so that we can, number one, see that those threads come up through the needle head in a more responsible way. And, second, it will make the task of the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, considerably easier, because when he plugs into our Department, instead of plugging in six or eight places, he will be able to plug in through the Under Secretary of Intelligence, and have a senior official there able to help cause that department—these multiple agencies involved with intelligence, respond to the Director of Central Intelligence in an effective way.

    There was a feeling that when the Cold War ended, that the task of the Intelligence Community would be easier. And so a lot of reductions were taken during the 1990s. It turns out to be a big mistake. The Intelligence Community needs funds, and they need funds because the world is a big place.

    And we have to now look not only at the Soviet Union, which you could learn and get comfortable with and watch it move in kind of a ponderous, predictable way.

    But we have got to look at a whole host of closed societies, places like North Korea, which is closed, and any number of terrorist states. We have to look at ungoverned areas in the globe. Increasingly, there are big chunks of countries that the countries don't control, that are really not effectively under the governance of the so-called government of that country.

    So the task that the Intelligence Community has is more difficult, not less difficult. Second, the ability to deny and deceive is growing every day. Because we were talking about the underground tunneling and activities that take underground. The knowledge that has proliferated around the globe as to how our satellites work and when we are able to see things, and what we are able to see, what our techniques are.
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    We have had spies who have given away information that have just been terribly harmful to our ability to know what is happening in the world. And simultaneously with the increase in the difficulty of the task, you have had the increase in the lethality of the weapons. The proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. And we sit here today facing a world within a decade where there could be another four, five or six nuclear powers, and not nuclear powers like England, not nuclear powers like the United States, nuclear powers, nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist states.

    So it makes task of getting better intelligence faster, and fused in a way that it is actionable and usable for knowledge so much greater, because the risk is so much greater.

    Mr. MEEK. Mr. Chairman, if I may just quickly. Mr. Secretary, I just—I think that that is so very, very important. I was a captain in the highway patrol before I went into the Florida legislature. The issue of security and preventative measures as it relates to security is never high on the totem pole until someone is missing their car in the parking lot.

    But I just wanted to say that if we can tie that intelligence in with the saving of American lives in Iraq, or even using it and using it as relates to North Korea, and credit the activities or the authorization from the Congress and the efforts to the Department of Defense in saving lives, the reason that we didn't have a great loss of life is that we had the kind of intelligence we needed to make sure that individuals returned home.

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    I know we all hold that in a high record. But as you and General Myers talk more about troops going and being safe, I think that sharing to—whatever limit you can with the American people—would be quite helpful, because we will be the ambassadors in our districts of explaining to mothers and wives and husbands about the safe return of their loved ones.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Congressman, that is an enormously important topic. I am delighted you raised it. And you are quite right. We, as a country, by doing better in this area, can save lives by taking action before the fact rather than trying to clean up something after it has happened. Thank you.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Turner.

    Mr. TURNER OF OHIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate your efforts to provide information to new members bringing us up to speed on some of your goals. I appreciate the briefing that we had last week where you talked about the accomplishments that you have had over the past two years and what you outlined and highlighted today and your goals of transformation and certainly that process. One of the themes that is consistent throughout your presentation is the issue of New Century and shifting from the Industrial Age, and in concert with that theme my question goes to the area of science and technology funding.

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    In your presentation you indicate that the goal of three percent of funding for science and technology (S&T) will not be met with the requests being at 2.69 percent. And looking at the other materials we received, they also indicate that last year's request was similar, at 2.68 percent. And listening to some of your issues of transformation and reductions, we can talk in terms of achieving efficiencies and shifting priorities. But in science and technology we are talking about investing in really our advantage on the battlefields of tomorrow. And looking at your materials, some of the things that are listed under science and technology, advanced combat and soldier systems, aircraft propulsion, unmanned systems, space communications, some of the things that currently are touted as the most important in looking at the modernization of our forces, I was wondering, your concerns about the cumulative effect of not meeting this goal and whether or not you have a plan to catch up.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, Congressman Turner, it is—I suppose it is unknowable, in this sense. I was in the pharmaceutical business for a number of years and in the electronics business. And people—we would look at the research and development budgets as a percentage of revenue, sales, and try to see—try to stay up at a certain level, never knowing if the dollars you put in there will actually produce a product that will create value but knowing that if you didn't do it you were eating your seed corn because all your other products were getting older and you were not at least trying to get that new information and the new products that could help save lives.

    The same thing is true here. It is a guess what that number ought to be. I mean the three percent is pulled out of midair. But over time I have got to believe that we do misserve our country if we don't find ways to see that we invest something like on a regular basis. And you are right, there is cumulative effect to underinvesting. It is just like housing. You underinvest long enough and you are going to end up with a growing percentage of your total housing that is substandard. And if you underinvest in research and development, or in this case, S&T, we call it in the government, in the Pentagon, we are going to end up with having underinvested in a way that we are going to end up with sub—not substandard, but capabilities that are not on the leading edge and that are less than they ought to be.
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    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Congressman, if I could only add one point, which is, of course the issue is really three percent of what. Two years ago we were somewhat lower than we are today, but that was 2.6 whatever, 2.67 of a budget of 331 billion. Now we are at 2.69 out of a budget of 50 billion more, give or take. So the pie has grown and the absolute number is over $10 billion now, and by 2007 we will be over 11 billion.

    So there is progress even if we are not there yet. I don't want you to walk away with the impression that we are not putting more and more money in, even as we put more money into development, say the missile defense area, where now we are putting money into development because we are much more on the way toward actually producing systems that we will field.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. When the supplemental comes up, the budget will be higher and the investment in S&T, therefore, will produce a still lower percentage, although the dollar amount will stay the same.

    Mr. TURNER OF OHIO. Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. And the gentlelady from Guam, Ms. Bordallo. And is that the correct pronunciation?

    Ms. BORDALLO. As long as it is not ''bordello''

    The CHAIRMAN. Believe me, it never will be.
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    Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, can you explain to Mr. Taylor why that is funny to some people in the room?

    Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, General Myers, and I, too, would like to join my colleagues by saying thank you. It is a real delight to be on this committee and very, very important for the Territory that I represent and that is Guam.

    I am a new Member, and I am afraid I am quite persistent. I have been asking at every briefing about the North Korean situation and Congressman Skelton opened up this hearing by alluding to the North Korean situation. It is my belief, Mr. Secretary, that the Territory of Guam is a key component to defend U.S. interests and our allies in the Pacific region. Given the number of important and competing military responsibilities Guam is tasked with, it often seems that there is no clear strategic vision for Guam's future, where thousands of loyal Americans live. Also, it is unclear what protection, if any, Guam would have under a national missile defense system even though it is just within the range of a North Korean missile attack. During the Pentagon hearings, the briefings, I heard no mention of any activity going on in the Pacific Command other than the normal activities. I would like to work with you to craft a strategic vision for the future of the military on Guam and would like to begin by asking you what you perceive as Guam's role, given the increase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Perhaps the General could also answer, and also to ask you is that role reflected in the budget that you have presented to us today?
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Is what role?

    Ms. BORDALLO. The role of Guam's activity.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Guam is important. It is important in and of itself. It is important to the United States military, as you know well from your background. I would say that the range, the ranges of North Korean ballistic missiles are increasing over time, and today they cover not just Guam, but they cover our friends in Japan, they include portions of the United States, and because of imperfect knowledge about the ranges, one has to anticipate that they either have or will shortly have the ability to range most, if not all, of the United States given the tests they did with a two-stage with a kick-motor some time back, I believe it was the Taepodong II.

    I don't know quite how to answer your question because I don't think of Guam as something that is separate from the United States or separate from Northeast Asia. It is—when we make our arrangements for how we want to deter and defend our country, we do it forward. We don't do it back, thinking we should protect the border of California or the East Coast. We do it forward. And we do it forward for a reason, because we believe it is very much in our country's interest to deter and defend in that way.

    We do a great many things. We have got significant investments in Asia, not just Northeast Asia, but in Korea and Japan and Guam and in other locations. We have increasing capabilities in the southern portion of that region, and we consider it enormously important and certainly this budget reflects that.
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    Ms. BORDALLO. Perhaps, Mr. Secretary, I could rephrase the question. During the BRAC closures, Guam took a hit and we closed major bases there. I never could understand that because I realize that, strategically, we are very important to the United States being so far away and so far—so close to some of the troubled areas. And what I mean to say is we don't see that much increased activity. There is a little. We have some of the bombers coming through. We have the nuclear subs that are being stationed there. But I don't see that much increased activity inasmuch as Korea is such a real threat.

    General MYERS. When I served in the Pacific as Commander of the Pacific Air Forces, you are quite right. That was—I think I got there just after the BRAC or while it was being implemented, and I think the strategic vision for Guam at that point was pretty much as you described it. But I would say since the late 1990s, and particularly with Secretary Rumsfeld and the team now, that the strategic value of Guam is very, very high, and we have put millions into the fuel infrastructure into Guam, as you are probably aware.

    Ms. BORDALLO. Yes.

    General MYERS. We are putting, I think, millions into infrastructure so we can receive bomber elements because of its strategic location, and not just for Asia but it could be for other parts the world, as well. I think you will see in this budget other things that are going to happen good for Guam, and we talked about the submarines being stationed there, as well. So I think from where we were 5, 6, 7 years ago to where we are today that it is almost a 180 degree swap-out with how we view Guam and its strategic importance to the United States as part of the United States.
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    Ms. BORDALLO. Very good. That is what I wanted to hear, that we are behind it and the buildup in Guam, and that is what my constituents are concerned with because, you know, we want to know that we are being protected and I think pretty generally you answered that.

    General MYERS. Absolutely. In terms of protection, one of the things that the Secretary has done along with the Department in looking at missile defense has broadened the scope. Once we were out from under the restrictions of the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty we were able to broaden the scope of what we could do. And one of the things we can do, of course, is look at the seabased component of missile defense. And I would think that would have a lot of applicability if you think about defending places like Guam. And while there is a long way to go, I think we are on the right path to address those sorts of issues.

    Ms. BORDALLO. Well, thank you very much. It makes me feel very good.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. And the gentleman from Minnesota, the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Kline.

    Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see we are starting to get the competition of competing committees here, and unfortunately I am going to have to leave in just a minute. But I wanted to thank the Secretary and the General and Dr. Zakheim for coming, for your patience today and for the thoroughness of your answers. I toiled in an earlier life for a number of years in preparing DOD budgets, so I know that there are hundreds or, more correctly, thousands of men and women not only in the Pentagon but all over who put in hours and hours and weeks and weeks; in fact, some of them do it year round all the time, and you have teams already preparing the 2005 budget. So thank you very much. It is terrific work.
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    I am excited about many of the things you are working on transformation and I can't wait till we get into the details of how you are going to shorten that acquisition span and streamline things, get more flexibility. I know that many of your predecessors toiled and tilted at those windmills a number of times, so I wish you great good luck and I hope that we can be an active part of that.

    I simply have one question of the many that are bubbling around in my head. You have mentioned a number of times, Mr. Secretary, that you think it is—we ought to be able to do something about the fact that men and women, when they reach the ripe old age of 45 or 47, I think in your last example, they shouldn't be walking out the door. And while I am sure many of us would share that sentiment, I am wondering how that can be done, that we can keep people without literally aging the force and perhaps impacting on the morale of those younger men and women.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. You are right. That is an important consideration, and it is something that would have to be done very carefully, and it would be only the people who wanted to stay. There wouldn't be any implication that people had to stay longer. Dr. Chu briefed me last week on a model that he thinks will work. He either briefed or is going to brief General Myers on that.

    General MYERS. He has briefed me on that, as well.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Within the last day or two. He then is going to go around to the Services and others in the Department, and we would be happy to have you get briefed at some point. We have not concluded it is right because we are still testing it in the marketplace, so to speak. I have always believed that he who tears down what is has the responsibility of recommending something better, and it is sufficiently complex that I want to make darn sure we have something better. But it is—and it is not going to be dramatic. But it will incrementally alter it in a way that I believe is favorable. It could affect both tour lengths and numbers of years of service for those who prefer to do that.
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    Mr. KLINE. Thank you, sir. I am really looking forward to seeing the details of that and I am looking forward to talking with Dr. Chu and others. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time.

    The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank the gentleman, and you are the first one to do that, believe me.

    Mr. KLINE. I want you to remember that, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. And my colleague from San Diego, the distinguished gentlelady, Ms. Davis.

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being here. Thank you for being here for such a long time. I just wanted to go back to one of the issues and perhaps others talked about this more, but the end strength and the numbers of 10,000 in the Navy, in the naval forces. Can you tell me where—how do you get to that number? Where does that come from?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. We didn't get to that number. It was there when I arrived. And what happens is a process where we can almost continuously, but at least periodically, ask ourselves what are the capabilities we believe we need to execute the defense strategy that is approved by the President of the United States. So we then take that strategy, look at the forces that are needed, and then look at the people that are needed to man those forces. It is constantly changing.
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    If you take a ship, the new carrier that we are proposing in this budget, it is going to be able to function with much greater capabilities and lethality, with 800 less people than the carrier right before. Now, that is the kind of change that occurs. Simultaneously, there is a change going the other way. We just increased by 1,893 the number of—we are in the process of doing it—special operators. So we constantly have these puts and takes. And the other thing that is happening out there, the world changes. So——

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Well, I think one of the concerns that was raised is about the reserves and how you balance that, and so I think that was part of my question, as well, and I know that you spent a lot of time with that already. But, you know, how do we get to those numbers, and if we are looking to—if we don't feel that we want to engage the large number of reserves, then perhaps at some point maybe that number changes as well.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. There are trade-offs there. To the extent you may want to take an activity from the reserves and have it on active duty, those numbers might change in some way. On the other hand, the demand for homeland security and the role of the Guard obviously is going to be terribly important in the period ahead. You want to say something?

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Well, just specifically on the 10,000 you asked about, that is directly related to the ships that are being retired. You know, we are retiring about 26 ships, I believe, the Spruance-class and others, and so that is where it comes from.

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Okay. So even though we are going to fund new ships, but we still have the net gain.
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    Mr. ZAKHEIM. Well, again you have the new ships coming much later and, as the Secretary just said, a lot of them will need—that is one of the attractions of these new ships, that they do need fewer people. They are much more people efficient.

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And we actually have seen that in San Diego.

    If I could just very quickly, one of the areas of expertise that I think the military needs more and more is language capability. And there is no, you know, line item for that per se in the budget. One of the things—and if you can find this number for me, I would be very curious to see what have we spent in the past in language acquisition and training and what are we spending today.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. And I would add a third question, and what are we spending it on. Are we spending it on languages that were historically interesting and important or are we spending it on languages that are currently and prospectively interesting and important? And the answer is we need to improve.

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. One suggestion perhaps, and people I am sure have looked at this, is that there may be capabilities among the reserve that could be greater utilized than in the active military and perhaps, I don't know if we are using that as well as we could, but——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. We are using it. I don't know if it is as well as we could. But we are definitely using the language capabilities in the reserves. I have been to locations around this country where person after person doing language work is a reservist.
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    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. And, Mr. Secretary, we have got just——

    Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. We have got a few members left and I wanted to know if—how you are looking on time?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I think it would be unfair to not allow questions from the individuals who have not yet had a crack at—particularly at Dick Myers or Dov Zakheim.

    The CHAIRMAN. I think we have been letting Zakheim escape unscathed here. We do have to go after him. Thank you.

    Mr. Gingrey, the fine gentleman from Georgia, you are recognized.

    Dr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, General Myers, Mr. Zakheim, first of all, I deeply appreciate the fact that you have been here over three hours and to let a freshmen member go to another meeting and come back and ask a question I really appreciate. In fact, it was probably three hours ago when you proposed or suggested that it would be nice if the Department of Defense could get a budget for a two-year period of time rather than one year, and I think that is a great idea. I don't know how difficult that would be, maybe about as difficult as it would be for you to help us get four-year terms for House Members. But I would be glad to work on that two-year cycle in exchange for that.
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    I wanted to—actually I wanted to ask General Myers a question in regard to the FA–22. Now, I represent an area of Georgia where the assembly of the FA–22 occurs at Lockheed Martin Marietta, and I was very interested in your comments about that. We are pleased in going forward, I hope that that $5.2 billion will remain in the—will be funded for the F–22 program. But you mentioned, General Myers, that there are probably or might be a mix of high-end fighters, the F–22, and the older fighters, and I am just wondering going forward at what point will we mothball all of those older fighters if you will and have this joint strike fighter, F–22.

    General MYERS. Well, what I was referring to, Congressman, was, you know the concept of having some high-end fighters, some that are a little more capable and then some less capable and presumably less expensive. There was a concept that I think Secretary Rumsfeld, I think, worked on when he was Secretary of Defense the first time, and I don't mean to imply we are going to keep some of the older fighters like the F–15s around. The F–22—FA–22 is programmed to replace the F–15, and then we will bring on the joint strike fighter to replace the F–16s and A–10s and some of those aircraft over time, and that will go out well into the next decade or go beyond this decade.

    As you know, the Joint Strike Fighter doesn't really get up and running as it is currently programmed until the end of this decade, and then it will go for quite some time as it replaces the older aircraft in both the Navy and the Marine Corp and the Air Force, and that is the concept.

    Dr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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    Mr. BRADLEY [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. Gingrey. Obviously, I am pinch hitting for Chairman Hunter and would ask if Mr. Alexander from Louisiana has a question.

    Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary, a little earlier, the Chairman said something about the fact that the B–1 fleet might be cut by one-third, from 90 down to 60. Yet your material says that it will be cut by 60. Which one is correct? And whatever is correct, will that money that will be saved be put back into the B–1 program?

    Secretary RUMSFELD. It is 90 to 60, and there is no question but that the money will be used to upgrade that weapons system so that it will be more capable and be more capable for a longer period.

    Mr. ALEXANDER. Okay. It says in your budget that it will be cut by 60.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. I don't know. When you say ''in the budget,'' if it says that, it should say cut to 60 and not by 60, and we appreciate that heads up.

    Mr. ALEXANDER. Okay.

    Mr. ZAKHEIM. That is an important typo.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. That isn't in my testimony, I hope.

    Mr. ALEXANDER. It is on page three in this.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. What is that? That is not our document. That looks like it is a document from the committee.

    Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, I am just reading what was put before us. It just says——

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Which letterhead is it? Whose letterhead is it?

    Mr. ALEXANDER. It is on the committee.

    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank goodness. We have dodged a bullet.

    Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Mr. Franks.

    Mr. FRANKS. Mr. Secretary and General Myers, I am the last guy of the day. So I know you have had a long—oh, there's one more? Well, I am still going to do the same thing here. I am just going to take the privilege of the moment to thank you earnestly and to echo the appreciation of this committee for your magnificent commitment to America and human freedom. And with that, I am just going to yield back my time.

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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you very much. We appreciate that.

    Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you, Mr. Franks. And finally to Mr. Israel. Thank you.

    Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, General, it is a pleasure to be here with you. I am a new member of this committee but served in the 107th Congress, and in that Congress was an early bipartisan supporter, Mr. Secretary, of your view on Iraq and was very proud to have worked with you on that bipartisan basis on such a critical issue. I will be very brief.

    I could not agree more with your consistent and ongoing emphasis on transformation. My district is on Long Island, 35 miles away from what was the World Trade Center. My constituents understand that we are fighting a new war, that the nature of risk and the nature of threat is changing, and so my position on this committee I hope is important to them, and I just want to offer to work very closely with you, continuing on a bipartisan basis, on issues like the Army Objective Force, the Navy Expeditionary Strike Force, the Air Force Air and Space Expeditionary Force, and would appreciate it if you could arrange for a briefing so that you can help me go through this learning curve and so that I can continue to be an effective bipartisan supporter of your Department. And with that, I yield back my time.

    Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Israel. And the Chair at this time would recognize the member from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.

    Mr. SKELTON. I just want to say a special thanks to each of you, Mr. Secretary, for your patience and for your excellent presentation. In a world of peace you have immense challenges, and with the war on terrorism, the Iraqi situation, with North Korea coming up on the horizon, your hands are more than full, so we wish you well. Thank you for being with us today.
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    Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you very much, sir.

    Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you very much. On behalf of Chairman Hunter, I would like to thank Dr. Zakheim, General Myers and Secretary Rumsfeld for your patience, for your commitment to America, and the entire committee wishes you Godspeed with your very important work. Thank you.

    The committee stands adjourned. Thank you, everyone.

    [Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]