SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2000
[H.A.S.C. No. 106–37]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001—H.R. 4205
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
FULL COMMITTEE HEARINGS
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ON
AUTHORIZATION AND OVERSIGHT
HEARINGS HELD
FEBRUARY 10, 2000
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Sixth Congress
FLOYD D. SPENCE, South Carolina, Chairman
BOB STUMP, Arizona
DUNCAN HUNTER, California
JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio
HERBERT H. BATEMAN, Virginia
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
STEVE BUYER, Indiana
TILLIE K. FOWLER, Florida
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JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
JAMES TALENT, Missouri
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
J.C. WATTS, Jr., Oklahoma
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
BOB RILEY, Alabama
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
MARY BONO, California
JOSEPH PITTS, Pennsylvania
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
STEVEN KUYKENDALL, California
DONALD SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
NORMAN SISISKY, Virginia
JOHN M. SPRATT, Jr., South Carolina
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SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
OWEN PICKETT, Virginia
LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
TOM ALLEN, Maine
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
JAMES H. MALONEY, Connecticut
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT BRADY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
MIKE THOMPSON, California
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
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Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
David Trachtenberg, Professional Staff Member
Ashley Godwin, Staff Assistant
Lisa Wetzel, Staff Assistant
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2000
HEARING:
Thursday, February 10, 2000, Fiscal Year 2001 National Defense Authorization Act—Service Chiefs
APPENDIX:
Thursday, February 10, 2000
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2000
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FISCAL YEAR 2001 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SERVICE CHIEFS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
Spence, Hon. Floyd D., a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
Johnson, Adm. Jay L., Chief of Naval Operations, Department of the Navy
Jones Gen. James L., Commandant, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps
Ryan, Gen. Michael E., Chief of Staff, Department of the Air Force
Shinseki, Gen. Eric K., Chief of Staff, Department of the Army
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements submitted for the Record can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Johnson, Adm. Jay L.
Jones, Gen. James L.
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Ryan, Gen. Michael E.
Shinseki, Gen. Eric K.
Skelton, Hon. Ike
Spence, Hon. Floyd D.
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted for the Record can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Highlights of the Department of the Navy FY 2001 Budget
Letter to Chairman Spence, from Gen. James L. Jones
Supporting Exhibits (M–1, O–1, P–1, R–1 & C–1) Department of the Navy FY 2001 Budget
United States Army Posture Statement FY01
2000 Posture Statement Department of the Navy
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers submitted for the Record can be viewed in the hard copy.]
FISCAL YEAR 2001 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SERVICE CHIEFS
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Thursday, February 10, 2000.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Floyd D. Spence (chairman of the committee) presiding.
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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FLOYD D. SPENCE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will please be in order. Today the committee continues its oversight of the fiscal year 2001 defense budget request. We have with us this morning the four military service chiefs: General Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army; Admiral Jay Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations; General Michael Ryan, Chief of Staff of the Air Force; and General James Jones, Commandant of the Marine Corps. Gentlemen, we welcome you back to the committee and we look forward to your testimony.
Yesterday we had before us Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shelton, on the fiscal year 2001 budget request. As I did yesterday, I note that the budget request, the last of this Administration and the first time in a decade, calls for a significant real growth increase on defense spending. I welcome you and must once again commend Secretary Cohen, General Shelton, and the four of you for prevailing over the Administration to join those of us who have argued for a long time that additional resources were needed to halt the decade-long erosion in our military capability. But paraphrasing from Secretary Cohen's testimony of yesterday, one year of real growth does not a military make. How we got here, we find ourselves at the bottom of a steep mountain but must climb steadily and aggressively if we are to avoid the defense budget train wreck that is widely recognized as being just around the corner.
In many respects the collective task before us is educational. Mr. Skelton yesterday talked about the growing gap between military America and civilian America. I share that concern and believe it further challenges us to better articulate the defense debate in terms that are more real and practical to the American public. For instance, I have been trying in my speeches to tell people my assessment of the many threats that we face in the world today and how ill-prepared we are to defend against them. Most people, I don't think, realize either of those facts, numerical assessments of defense budget shortfalls and growth over complicated spending baselines outside of Washington. I have always believed that the more appropriate defense debate should be over what level of national security risk our Nation is willing to accept.
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Only five months ago General Shinseki told this committee, and I quote him—as I told you I would, General—''There is still a mismatch between the resources we have and the requirements we may face. At the high end of the spectrum of conflict, the strategy calls for fighting nearly simultaneously in two major theaters of war. However, as we have noted on several occasions, there is significant risk in the second major theater of war. That risk is measured in the expenditure of national treasure, American lives and dollars,'' end quote. I might also add our national security as a Nation.
Gentlemen, over the course of the past five years, either you or your predecessors have appeared before this committee and itemized the range of unfunded quality of life, readiness, and modernization requirements. Your assessments have served as an important measure of the inadequacy of the defense budgets and have guided us as to how to best address the most critical shortfalls with whatever additional resources Congress could muster. In testimony before the committee last October, the four of you estimated that the cumulative level of unfunded requirements facing the Services was approximately $9 billion, even after assuming the increased funding anticipated in the fiscal year 2001 budget.
Today the committee will once again ask for your assessment of how this year's budget addresses such shortfalls, what problems you continue to confront, and which areas require the most urgent attention. I look forward to this discussion and to your important input. But I would also ask you to address in the discussion of shortfalls in the context of military preparedness and risk so that the ensuing debate could be properly framed for the broader and more important audience that lies beyond this room.
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Before turning to our witnesses this morning for opening remarks, I would like to recognize the committee's ranking minority member, Mr. Skelton, for any opening remarks that he would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Spence can be found in the Appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Shinseki, Admiral Johnson, General Ryan, General Jones, we welcome you to our committee where you will present some details for the upcoming fiscal year defense budget. Let me express my sincere appreciation to each one of you for the wonderful and outstanding work that you do, and your devotion to duty is certainly a role model for all of those who wear your respective uniforms.
I am pleased that the President's budget this year represents a substantial increase in funding over last year's level and many of us believe that such increase is essential given the operational realities of today. Last year, you will recall, was the year that the troops were able to enact a package for common sense initiatives which was well received by the younger folks in uniform, and we are pleased that we could do that. This year needs to be the year of health care. I hope that we will be able to use the real increased military spending to enhance the quality of life for our soldiers, sailors, and Marines who serve so selflessly. Frankly, I think our overall goal should be to improve the health care not just for them but for the retirees as well. That is very important because we found that our retirees can be, and in many cases are, our best recruiters. We cannot break faith with those who have served so well for 20 years or above.
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Let me address just for a minute the size of our force and the number of weapons systems that we have on hand today and with the need to meet our global commitments with a substantially smaller force. For example, in the mid-1980s, we were over 2.1 million people on active duty, including 575,000 in the Army, 570,000 in the Navy, over 600,000 in the Air Force, and over 195,000 in the Marine Corps. Today we have fewer than 1.4 million on active duty. The Army struggles to keep its strength at 480,000, the Navy is below 375,000, the Air Force end strength is about 360,000, the Marine Corps is down to 172,000.
At the same time the number of our weapons systems has declined. In the mid-1980s the Air Force had over 8300 aircraft on hand. Today the number is 5300. The Navy had almost 600 ships. Today we worry if we can sustain a 300-ship Navy. The Army is now down to ten divisions, and both the Army and the Marine Corps suffer from the inability to require as many tanks and other weapons systems as their operational requirements dictate.
While the size of our military has been reduced the operational tempo has gone up, it has increased. According to the Congressional Research Service, it tells us that 1945 to 1990, a 45-year period, the U.S. armed forces were deployed overseas fewer than 50 times. Since 1990, a 10-year period, our forces have been deployed abroad more than 60 times. Each time the force has been deployed, we have learned important lessons about how best to critically use them. Let me give you a list of what we have done in just the last 20 years: Lebanon, 1982-84; Panama 1989 to 1990; Persian Gulf War, 1990-91; Somalia, 1992-93; Bosnia, 1992 to the present; Haiti, 1994-96; Kosovo 1998 to the present. All of these have been major operations and successful operations, but they have taken their toll and given us lessons.
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Now, what about the next 20 years? What about the days ahead? Overall and in large part based upon the lessons that we have learned and which we have engaged, I believe there are several issues which we must be concerned this year and in the future. First, health care. This needs to be the year of health care. Service members and retirees are dissatisfied with TRICARE. We must do something to fix it. The President's budget seeks to fix the medical care system of ranking duty personnel and their families, but we need to address those wonderful retirees out there who have so much influence over the young people in the communities. We need to do that.
Second, I am concerned about the growing cultural gap between military personnel and the rest of society. You have heard me speak about that before. That gap needs to be bridged.
Third, there is a need for greater emphasis on professional military education. During the Second World War, 30 of the 34 Army Corps commanders had extensive professional military education, many of them as instructioners. Troy Middleton, 7th Corps Commander during the Battle of the Bulge, spent ten years in the classroom both as a student and as instructor. Today being a professional military instructor at the Command General staff level or Senior War College is a kiss of death for someone with career aspirations. That has to change.
Fourth, we must modernize our weapons systems if we are to preserve the technological edge that has served us so well in the Persian Gulf War. I am pleased to see that the armor accounts are up over $60 billion this year, although it should be higher.
Fifth, there should be an imperative to ensure the next Quadrennial Defense Review. The recommendations are based on strategy and missions, not on the anticipated size of the budget.
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Sixth, the threat to American citizens domestically from terrorists is increasing and promises to continue to grow in the years ahead. Recent legislative initiatives to increase the number of so-called ready teams is a step in the right direction, but we must pay attention to this.
Seventh, to deal with the ballistic missile threat from rogue nations. The President is scheduled this summer to make a formal decision, and we may need to follow through on that decision of a national missile defense system.
Finally, I am concerned that we must do more to ensure that we are prepared to conduct military operations in the Information Age. We must ensure that our computer systems are protected against incursions—we have seen this in the news just recently—from both hackers and adversaries. We must also have the capability to conduct defensive information operations.
General Shinseki, Admiral Johnson, General Ryan, and General Jones are trying to get the right mix to balance the appropriate amount of resources devoted to force structure, modernization, infrastructure, readiness of personnel, and the quality of life issue is a very difficult balance but has to be done. I commend each of you for your success and aiming to strike that balance that worked so well for us in the past.
I want to remind others in this room that due in large part to your efforts this is now the second year of real increases of defense spending. Some might argue that the increases are not enough. However, under the Constitution it is the Congress, it is us, that has the primary responsibility for making appropriations. If not enough, then we in Congress should increase the funds for the armed forces as we have done over the past few years. I believe the American people intuitively understand that our prosperity at home rests in part on the stability of our forces to help maintain stability overseas in the Balkans, in the Pacific, Korea, the Persian Gulf, wherever it is our leadership in the world is needed and necessary.
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We thank you for your efforts in the past and we look for to your recommendations and suggestions today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be found in the Appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Skelton. Without objection the prepared statements of all of our witnesses, along with any accompanying material, will be inserted in the record. As in the past I would ask General Shinseki to begin, followed by Admiral Johnson, General Ryan, and General Jones. General Shinseki.
STATEMENT OF GEN. ERIC K. SHINSEKI, CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
General SHINSEKI. Good morning, everyone. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to appear before you today to address the Army's current posture and its state of readiness. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your consent to make this brief opening statement and also to insert a longer written version into the record.
First, I want to thank the Congress and the members of this committee particularly for your continuing support. With your leadership in fiscal year 1999 we marked a reversal of about a 13-year decline in real Army buying power. So on behalf of soldiers who serve today around the world, let me express their thanks for their pay raise, for the pay and retirement reform that you approved last year.
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I appear before you today to ask for your support for the Army's 2001 budget, fiscal year 2001 budget, and its vision for the future. Last October, Secretary Caldera and I unveiled an Army vision in which we talked about three things: people, readiness, and transformation. This vision is not just about equipment. It is about an investment in future American leadership and security.
First, the Army as people. We are a values-based organization, and our stock and trade is leadership. That is what we do each and every day. We train soldiers and we grow them into leaders. Our soldiers and leaders know and learn and live by our values, and it is they who enable the Army to meet its leadership responsibilities, both here at home and abroad. Soldiers are an investment in America and we must continue to keep faith with them and their families by building on the crucial momentum that we achieved this year. This year's most pressing issues are health care, as both the Chairman and Mr. Skelton have pointed out, and the well-being of soldiers and their families. I support General Shelton's initiative to expand TRICARE Prime Remote and to eliminate copays for our active duty families who are enrolled in TRICARE Prime networks. We must also find a way to help our retirees, especially those over 65, to secure reasonable affordable solutions to their health care needs.
The vision also talked about readiness. We understand our nonnegotiable contract with the American people, to fight and win other Nation's wars. To meet that obligation we must continue to address our most competitive near term readiness requirements. We have accepted risk for several years in other areas to do this. The fiscal year 2000 authorization helps us to maintain our near term readiness, and to reduce risks in those other areas. We look forward to the quick approval of the non-offset Kosovo supplemental to allow the Army to accomplish its contingency missions this year without unraveling our fourth quarter training programs.
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Today the Army is busier than I have seen it in 34 years. I work primarily for the geographical Commanders in Chief (CINCs) to meet their day-to-day responsibilities. Those CINCs who have a war-fighting mission expect the Army to provide on short notice robust, ready, disciplined formations with which they can fight and win the major theater wars in their regions. On days when concerns about a war fight are not quite so nagging, all of the unified CINCs expect robust, disciplined forces with which to engage in their assigned areas of responsibility.
Now, those two demands, on-call war fighting, readiness, and day-to-day engagement and leadership abroad, they are in tension with each other. Doing one very well competes and detracts from the other requirement. To do both well requires a fully ready C–1 kind of Army, in our parlance. Traditionally, we have been that kind of C–1 Army and today we are not fully that C–1 Army. Our magnificent soldiers are working hard to meet those expectations of a C–1 Army in order to deliver the requirements of the war fighting CINCs. The momentum we started last year to improve our readiness condition was important and welcome. That momentum needs to continue.
War fighting is complex, but its fundamental imperatives boil down to a few simple rules of thumb. First, we want to initiate combat on our terms at a place and a time with a method of our choosing; not somebody else's, our choosing. Second, we want to gain the initiative and hold it. Never give it up. Third, we want to build momentum quickly, and fourth we want to win quick and decisively. Being able to do this provides a broad range of strategic options to the national command authority who must have flexibility in a crisis. We must have complementary capabilities, all of us here, in order to initiate on our terms, in order to seize and retain that initiative, in order to build momentum, and in order to win decisively.
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The Army must do its part. We must change the condition of today to continue providing decisive ground complement to our joint war fighting capabilities. We must transform the Army. That is why the third piece of the Army vision dealt with transformation. Transformation has become the most talked about aspect of our mission statement. And in brief, our aim is to gain strategic dominance at every point on the spectrum of operations from stability ops, to deterrence, to winning wars. This is not just about fielding equipment, but developing capabilities, force characteristics that the Army will need in our future objective force. Characteristics like being strategically responsive, like being deployable, like being versatile and agile, lethal, survivable, and sustainable. A force with these characteristics will have the ability to place a combat capable brigade anywhere in the world in 96 hours. It will put a division on the ground in 120, 5 divisions in theater in 30 days.
These are stretch goals, and I know that. To do this we have embarked upon a search for technologies that will give us answers in about three to four years, answers that we can use to design a future objective force eight to ten years down the road.
Candidly, we don't have all of the answers today but we are asking the right technological questions, and we will go where the answers are. The Army has moved up. In the meantime, we must maintain readiness of our legacy force, and that means recapitalizing the heavy divisions in the Army today. Until we get the answers to our technology questions that I have described, we will invest in an interim capability to do what we can't do as well today, and that is project combat capable brigades on short notice around the world. This force, a select number of brigades employing current off-the-shelf equipment, will allow us to model the responsiveness and the deployability we are seeking in the long term. It will allow us to organize, equip, train, and deploy interim brigades with the kind of doctrine that will enable that future objective force. We will fully develop and define our operational procedures as we await our technological solutions. When technology permits, we will transform the interim brigades and our legacy heavy divisions into that future objective force.
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Mr. Chairman, this is a historic opportunity for the Army. Most armies change when wartime defeats force them to do so. Today we seek to change this Army in a time of peace when we are with prosperity, with perspective, and with potential. But we have a narrow window and these conditions will not last for very long. While they do, the Army is embarking on its most significant effort to transform itself since World War I.
Many of you have talked to us about change. We are changing. To do it we need your help and more than that, we need your ideas, your criticism even, your energy, enthusiasm and we need your support. The Army has moved up. We will repay America's investment in us with quality people, war fighting readiness, and in time with a land force transformed to meet threats all across that spectrum of operations. With your help we will realize the Army's vision. We can't afford to miss this opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your invitation to appear before your committee today. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Shinseki can be found in the Appendix.]
STATEMENT OF ADM. JAY L. JOHNSON, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Skelton, distinguished members of the committee, I too appreciate the opportunity to appear once again before this body. A couple of points, if I could. First, to follow what General Shinseki said, I would like to simply say thank you to the committee for your pivotal role in making fiscal year 2000 the year of the troops. The 2000 budget was the significant step forward. Your fleet is grateful and we actually are beginning to see some positive effects and I will talk about those in a minute.
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By way of a fleet update, we still have half our Navy underway and a third of our Navy fully deployed every day. They maintain a high tempo of operations while we remain within our six-month portal-to-portal deployment policy. As I have reported consistently, the performance, mission execution, and morale out forward should make us all very proud.
On the nondeployed side, we continue to work hard at unburdening our sailors, empowering their commanding officers, and better resourcing the fleet as they execute their interdeployment training cycle. We are making some progress, but there is much, much more to do.
In the readiness area, I would offer this brief update on our training range in Vieques. As you know, the President signed two directives which give the Navy and the Marine Corps a way forward to begin a constructive dialogue with the citizens of Vieques to resolve this very complex issue. I can't at this time predict the outcome, but we will work hard to preserve this national training asset and to rebuild the relationship with the citizens of Vieques. In the meantime, we will train and certify our Atlantic fleet battle groups and amphibious ready groups by utilizing a number of training sites both here and abroad. I know I speak for General Jones when I tell you that we will never put our sailors or our Marines in harm's way without them being adequately trained and ready to execute their mission.
Recruiting is still a challenge to us. I am pleased to report that we continue to make our monthly goals thus far this year. We are not, however, making any real progress in increasing our delayed entry pool, that surge tank. This will not get any easier.
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In the critical area of retention we are beginning to see some positive signs which we believe are directly attributable to the pay triad and special pays and bonuses in this year's budget. Enlisted retention, though it is still below our goals, is actually up two to four percent thus far this year for first and second terms. Our selective reenlistment bonus take rate is actually 26 percent above what we forecast for the year. Surface warfare officers are now filling department head classes where the classes have averaged only about half full for the last three years. This is encouraging news but here, too, there is much more to do.
As you said, Mr. Chairman, this year's budget cannot be viewed as a one time fix. The momentum and the growth must be sustained.
Navy priorities are unchanged. The number one short-term priority is our people. We must continue to do everything that we can to convey to them in word and deed that our country truly depends on them for its security and we treasure their service and sacrifice. To that end I would add to what has already been said that we must sharpen our focus on health care issues to include taking care of the over 65 retirees to whom we owe so much.
Our number one long-term priority is ships and aircraft in sufficient numbers to ensure our operational primacy throughout this century.
I would conclude, Mr. Chairman, by recognizing the five members of this committee who will not return next year and offer my profound thanks to Mr. Bateman, Mr. Pickett, Mr. Talent, Mr. Kasich, and Mrs. Fowler. In both the professional and personal sense, they made a huge difference to this Chief and the Service I proudly represent. I am deeply grateful to them. I also know that they, like we, have been well served by the departing staff director, Dr. Andy Ellis, and I thank you, Andy, for the record.
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Mr. Chairman, I am ready to respond to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Johnson can be found in the Appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Admiral. General Ryan.
STATEMENT OF GEN. MICHAEL E. RYAN, CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
General RYAN. Chairman Spence, Congressman Skelton, and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to speak on behalf of the outstanding men and women of the United States Air Force. I want to again thank the Administration and Congress, in particular this committee, for responding to our most critical readiness needs described over the last several years. With your support the increase in funding we received in 1999 and 2000 has helped address some of our immediate concerns, and I am optimistic that if we sustain that funding, our readiness decline can be turned around, but it has not yet.
Mr. Chairman, I can report that while our readiness trends have not reversed, our airmen continue to perform their mission worldwide with great pride and professionalism. As you know, 1999 was a very busy year for the Air Force. Our airmen put forth a tremendous effort in the air war over Serbia. We opened 21 expeditionary locations and deployed over 500 aircraft. Together with our sister services and our NATO allies, air power played a key role in forcing Milosevic to cease the atrocities in Kosovo and withdraw his forces. Our airmen performed superbly in a just and right cause, and they did it in the face of great danger and I can tell you that we are all very proud of them.
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During and following Operation Allied Force our airmen continued a marathon effort of flying sustained combat operations throughout the year in Southwest Asia, in responding on short notice to multiple humanitarian crises such as earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan, and hurricanes and floods here in the United States and in Latin America. Because of the pace of last year's operations, we are digging out of a deeper hole than I expected when I testified last year. The indicators that we use for evaluating readiness have not yet shown a sustained upturn.
Our recruiting is still a challenge. We are losing too many of our experienced people, both enlisted and officers. Last year although we recruited more airmen than the previous year, we missed our new goal by 1700 people. Thus far this year we have indications we may again miss our annual recruiting goal for the second time since 1979.
In regard to retention, I am particularly concerned about our midterm career NCOs, but I am hopeful that the increases in pay and benefits and retirement that you approved last year, along with the stability provided by our Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) schedule, we will begin to retain more of these airmen we so value.
Last year I testified that pilot retention was again a major concern. We ended last year 1200 pilots short of our requirement. Today we are still 1200 pilots short. The good news is that our indicators for this year are positive, though it is a small side. But the new bonus system approved by the committee last year appears to be influencing more of our pilots to stay for a career.
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With the progressively aging fleet of aircraft, our people are working harder to maintain readiness. We have addressed our most critical readiness requirements in this budget by funding the needed spares, by revitalizing our older but useful aircraft and equipment, by beginning to replace those systems that are approaching the end of their operational life, such as the F–15 with the revolutionary capability of the F–22.
Unfortunately, the current funding levels do not allow us to adequately address our infrastructure shortfalls we have across the Air Force, such as repair and construction of base operation support. So our infrastructure will continue to deteriorate. It will ultimately impact our long-term readiness if we do not provide adequate funding in the years ahead.
Finally, I remain concerned about the health care provided our Air Force people, both active and retired. Although the amount of funding required to address this issue is uncertain, it is certain that our active duty and retirees and their families deserve our support to keep the health care promise.
I look forward to working with the committee as we tackle these challenges and strive for full recovery of the readiness of our force both today and building the needed capability of tomorrow. Thank you for inviting me to speak on behalf of the dedicated men and women of your Air Force who so proudly and selflessly serve for all of us.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Ryan can be found in the Appendix.]
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General Ryan. General Jones.
STATEMENT OF GEN. JAMES L. JONES, COMMANDANT, HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General JONES. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Skelton, let me add my personal thanks on behalf of the Marines all over the world to the five departing members of this committee and to the distinguished staff director who have contributed so much to our welfare and readiness during their time of service. We will miss them and we thank you very much.
I am also here, Mr. Chairman, to say thank you for the work and the support that the committee has provided the Marines during this past year. We have turned an important corner. We have managed to reduce our modernization backlog. We have made substantive changes in our pay tables and our reforms. We have been able to provide our men and women in uniform with a pay raise. That sent a powerful message to the force, stabilized a lot of concerns, and convinced our people that there is support and there is appreciation for the hard work that they do in support of our national objectives.
But there is no victory yet to be declared. This is but a first step in a long process of sustainment that I believe we must vigorously and energetically enter into in order to make sure that we can provide the country with the armed forces of the 21st century that it both needs and expects.
As we sit on the threshold of the 20th century, it seems to me that some of the lessons—I am sorry, threshold of the 21st century, it seems to me that the lessons of the 20th century are worth spending a moment to talk about. We have inherited a great legacy. In the 20th century, before anything good happened, there was an American uniform somewhere in the world that led the way. They paved our way. That uniform paved our way through both hot and cold wars, and only as a result of their sacrifice did we emerge into a superpower, a superpower economically, a superpower that exported the values of democracy and changed the face of the world, a superpower that expanded and exported its culture and most recently emerged as the uncontested leader with regard to technology. My feeling is that it will be the same thing in the 21st century. Our citizens expect global leadership and expect global responsibilities. But as we have learned the hard way in the 20th century, it is neither free nor inexpensive. If it isn't resourced properly, Mr. Chairman, to use your words, preparedness will go down and risk will go up.
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The percentage of our gross domestic product that we currently invest for the national security pillar upon which our superpower status maintains itself is about three percent, roughly three cents on the dollar. Over the past 60 years, the average has been 8 percent, 3 cents on the dollar for global responsibilities and global leadership. My opinion is that if we do not sustain this turnaround that we will not sustain our role as a superpower, we will not be able to recapitalize and modernize at the rate that we require and we will not sustain the all recruited force, which we refer to as the all volunteer force, that the Nation deserves.
So the question is what are we to do with the legacy of the greatest generation, the generation that gave us the surplus that we debate today as to how to invest it? And do we understand that the presence of an American uniform under conditions short of war is as important today as it was yesterday?
Within that context the role of naval forces plays an important role. Naval forces guarantee a global presence and that translates into significant shaping of the conflict long before it even develops. It can in fact avoid conflict. It can contribute to the dialogue that nations undergo under the umbrella of American leadership and recognize both overtly and in the privacy of the seats of power around the world. It guarantees that the concept of virtual presence also equals actual absence in prosecuting the dialogue of our international community.
Naval forces have a culture that embraces forward deployments, forward presence. It is not—it is beyond contesting that at least in the Marine Corps the highest reenlistment rates are in our deployed units. Young Americans join your Marines in order to do what we ask them to do and we don't disappoint them. We are funded to operate, not simply funded to be. We are experts in joint and combined operations and we provide a good model for the armies around the world to engage with us, to train with us, to learn from us, not just about war fighting but how militaries operate and exist in a democracy.
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Your Marine Corps today is a total force of about 211,000 Marines in the active and reserve, 15,000 civilians who serve with us, and we treat that entity as one. 20,000 of your Marines are forward deployed today, and I am happy to report that is down 3,000 from this month last year. It is, as I mentioned, an all recruited force with 68 percent of all Marines every day being on their first enlistment. Our recruiters have achieved a 55-month streak of recruiting the quality and quantity that are required to fill our ranks. We are recruiting 98 percent high school graduates and it costs us $6400 to recruit a single Marine. That is a bargain basement price in the Department.
I am also happy to tell you about our Junior ROTC program. We have 60 high schools across the Nation that are waiting for funding to start a program. The value of this program is beyond contest. Fully one-third of our young men and women who join a Junior ROTC program wind up wearing the uniform of a Marine. It comes at a very affordable cost because the people who teach these young people values, the value of good citizenship, responsibilities of service to the Nation generally come from our retired ranks. So it comes at no cost, at least in the Marine Corps, to the active duty side.
I am troubled by a persistent aspect of our recruiters load when they are denied access to many of our school systems. Some 40 school systems across our country have some policy denying recruiters either lists or access to our graduating high school seniors. That does not make their job easier. With regard to retention, I am pleased to report that the Marine Corps retains adequate quality and quantity and we are able to be selective in that process. Through internal reforms we have returned 2100 Marines to the foxholes, which is the equivalent of roughly two battalions within the Corps without asking for anything to adjust our end strength. Today's Marine Corps provides about 20 percent of the Nation's infantry battalions, 20 percent of the tactical fighter squadrons, 17 percent of the attack helicopters in the Nation's inventory, and roughly one-third of the combat service support in the ground combat element of our national inventory, for six percent of the defense budget. We are structured to deliver combat power to our three tiers of forward-based naval forces, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and the Marine Expeditionary Force. We have recently revitalized and reenergized all three of those capabilities, particularly the Brigade. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade is a robust brigade that is hinged around the maritime preposition shipping that the Congress has so generously and consistently supported all of these years, and it is a very potent combat capability that could go all of the way up to providing 18,000 combat ready Marines on a very short notice.
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There are other things that I would like to tell you about. In the decision to move our chemical and biological incident response force to Indianhead in Maryland up from the Jacksonville, North Carolina, area, in order to be in a better position to respond for potential for weapons of mass destruction in the Nation and in the Nation's capital, we are excited about that move and we will complete that in August.
In short, Mr. Chairman, your Marine Corps is ready, manned, and continues to need your support to turn around the modernization requirements and quality of life aspects that will guarantee the sustainment of the force. I would also like to associate myself with the requirement to provide for our retirees. And I ask for your help in ensuring that those who provided us these wonderful conditions that we enjoy, the surplus that we talk about, the relative peace that we celebrate, those are the people that paid the price in the 20th century. And we all have a moral obligation, as the Secretary of Defense mentioned yesterday, not to forget them.
I would also like to recommend that the committee seriously consider the acquisition and purchase of a maritime preposition shipping location called Blount Island in Florida. We are currently leasing that facility. The lease runs out in 2004. We have time to do that between now and then. This is a national asset, Mr. Chairman, that fully compliments the Army's facility in Charleston, and I urge you to consider the methodology by which we could do that in the shortest possible delay.
I am concerned about the paucity of our naval surface fires and our organic fire support systems and I have addressed my concerns in my statement. So I won't belabor the point.
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I believe encroachment to our training bases will continue to be a 21st century issue, not just for the Marines but for all of the Services. Sixty years ago we built the majority of our bases in places where we had no people. We now have people where there are bases. That presents a dialogue that must be enjoined and we must make sure that our citizens understand that the quality of their lives and the prosperity of their lives and the peaceful conditions that they enjoy comes sometimes at a little price and a little inconvenience, but it is well worth the investment. I would urge you to address that issue as it presents itself.
It is no secret to the committee that the Marine Corps endorses and embraces the potential of the Joint Strike Fighter, the AAAV, the production and hopefully the accelerated production of the V–22, and the lightweight 155 Howitzer.
I would also ask the committee respectively for some help in repealing some legislation that was passed that tasked the Services to reduce their service headquarters by five percent a year for the next three years. There is on top of the 27 percent reduction that has been levied upon us to be completed in 2001. Mr. Chairman, we would be happy to discuss the justification for not doing that, but we are really in extreme's in being able to meet our worldwide commitments and having to reduce the size of the headquarters in such a way that it makes it very difficult to operate and to do all of those things that are requested and required of us.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. I am deeply honored and very proud of the contributions that the Marines make day in and day out, and I am happy to respond to your questions.
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[The prepared statement of General Jones can be found in the Appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, General. Before we get to questions, I have been made aware of the fact that this might be Admiral Johnson's last posture hearing. I would just like to say for the record I have been around this place for almost 30 years. I have seen a lot of CNOs come and go. He provided excellent leadership for the Navy and I personally appreciate it. On behalf of this committee, I thank you for your service.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Let me set the pace for today's hearing by asking each of you to respond to some questions that will enable the other committee members to pursue you at their leisure. As you know, we have had a practice lately of asking each of you to submit to us a list of unfunded requirements before our hearing so that we would be able to get more properly involved in trying to assess what your needs are. And so I would like to ask each of you, so we can get it in the record, a few of these questions and then we can go from there.
First, please, each of you put a dollar figure against your unfunded requirements for fiscal year 2001 that were not addressed in the President's budget and indicate where you would recommend the expenditure of any additional resources were such resources made available by this committee.
Second, please provide a five-year dollar estimate and characterize the general nature of your unfunded requirements that were not addressed in the President's budget for the fiscal year 2001 through 2005 period.
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Finally, please indicate how these unfunded requirements have changed from those you presented to this committee last October. If you could do that for us as briefly as you could, then we could let the rest of the committee follow up on the questions. General Shinseki.
General SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, let me take your questions in order. This is in follow-up in written response to your letter to provide you a list of unfunded requirements. I would tell you that the dollar figure for 2001 that I returned in response to your letter totaled $5.4 billion. You asked how would that be spent. I would tell you that about a billion of that is near term readiness and about $4 billion is against a transformation requirement that I have since described since the last time I appeared before this committee last October.
I would like to respond for the record on the five-year breakout of what these unfunded requirements could look like. As you know, I am still in the process of putting together that transformation strategy. But I would say the 2001 answer that I provided approximates what those answers might be.
Again, your last question, how has this list changed since last October? The major change is that the Army has articulated a transformation vision and the changes would accommodate that.
Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, from the Navy, we have submitted our list for the record. The dollar figure for 2001 is $5.7 billion that were either not addressed or we believe could use more than we addressed in building our 2001 budget. The five-year estimate figures roughly $32 billion. We have broken those into categories of personnel, readiness—those are two categories, remodernization and recapitalization is a category, and then what we call in blue in support of green. For the five-year spread—sorry, for 2001 I would just tell you that the majority of that falls into modernization and recapitalization with about $800 million of it in the readiness category, totaling $5.7 billion again for 2001.
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How have things changed since last October? I think probably the best characterization would be to say that that $5.7 billion includes ships and aircraft that we would either like to accelerate into 2001 if funds become available or aircraft that we had to take out as we built our plan just to balance things. So there is probably about $2 billion of that $5.7 billion is ships and aircraft. That is a different construct of what we presented to you last October, sir.
General RYAN. Thank you, sir. We also submitted our unfunded priority list. Our focus on the 2001 time frame came out to $3.5 billion of things that we could execute in 2001. I will give you—internal to the document are the priorities that we have, but they primarily focus on people, readiness, and modernization; again, a very large need for infrastructure funding.
What changed from before? Well, first of all last year we did not get what we had asked for in addition to the budget, which last year was about half of the $5 billion that we had asked for. We rolled some of that into the 2001 time frame. The second thing that changed was some of our vision for the future on how the Air Force will operate as a result of the major theater of war that we fought in the air over Serbia. There are many requirements that came out of that that were shortfalls that we felt needed to be addressed. Thanks.
General JONES. Mr. Chairman, the unfunded figure for the Marine Corps is roughly $1.4 billion. I have also provided a detailed list of those unfunded requirements. But I would just say in general that—I would summarize the list by saying that includes recruiting and retention initiatives, family housing and barracks and other quality of life projects necessary to support our Marines and their families. They include support for our legacy systems, depot maintenance crews and control and the like, modernization of our aviation and ground equipment. Platforms continues to be stressed.
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Concerning our aging infrastructure, I would accelerate both the family housing and military construction projects and devote more resources to the maintenance of real property. As I mentioned earlier, I support the purchase of Blount Island. I would quicken the pace of modernization for both our ground and aviation equipment. As I testified last October, because of fiscal constraints the Marine Corps deferred our ground modernization for much of the previous decade to protect near term readiness. Well over $3 billion was deferred. Anything we can do to come out of that backlog would be greatly appreciated.
With regard to your second question, we have a $1.3 billion unfunded requirement. To answer again your second question, $1.3 billion per year. Unfunded elements of our out-year plan include quality of life programs that attract and retain new Marines. Restoring the infrastructure of our bases and stations, this would include more robust levels of military construction. And to continue the revitalization of our family housing and investment in real proper maintenance. Truly, since last October we have been very consistent in our message. I don't think there has been anything that has changed dramatically.
Thank you, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank all of you. Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony today. The Navy and the Marine Corps, as I understand it, because of your mission, don't lend yourself to the question I need to ask the Army and the Air Force. If I am incorrect, I would hope that each of you would say something.
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Rather than make a long answer, Generals, in 25 words or less, tell me, General Shinseki, how your Army's vision or your transformation is coming along as of now, where it is going to end, how it is going to end. And General Ryan, tell us the same thing as to your air expeditionary force efforts, please.
General SHINSEKI. In 25 words or less, we are launched, Mr. Skelton. We are also in the process of trying to develop momentum that makes this transformation irreversible. I have about two years to do that. It is our intent that the chief behind me and the chief that follows that chief will stay on track with this transformation strategy. That is why we have taken the outline of that strategy to the other Services, to all of our serving Commanders in Chief (CINCs), through Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD), to members of this committee to ensure that we have clear understanding of where the Army is headed. We have invited folks to challenge it so we get it right. We have benefited from all of that. I will tell you that the transformation strategy is intact.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you. General Ryan.
General RYAN. Our Aerospace Expeditionary Force concept is our vision for the future. We are on a path to integrate air and space. This is a journey and not a destination. We will continually have to do it to provide a full spectrum of capability that gives us global response for aerospace power that is light, lean, and lethal, that gets that quickly, and causes the effects that need to be achieved. It is a vision that we think we understand the nature of, the challenge that we will have in this 21st century, and that is the force we are building.
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Mr. SKELTON. You are on track?
General RYAN. On track.
Mr. SKELTON. I have expressed concern to each of you at one time or another, I know, about the professional military education. This is not a question, but a comment.
I would certainly hope that each of you in your spare time take a few moments to review what your individual service is doing insofar as not training, but educating leaders from the tactical level, to the operational art level, to the strategic level for those contingencies that just sure as God made little green apples is going to happen. It is very important and I would hope that each of you would take a few moments to look at both the Command General staff level and also the War College level as well as the university here in Washington, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) and the National War College, as to whether we are getting our money's worth, are they teaching the right thing, how to improve it, do we have the right people there.
That would be my request to each of you.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Buyer.
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Mr. BUYER. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. I have a series of questions. General Shinseki, I am interested in your update on your initiative to increase the manning of the combat forces to 100 percent of the authorized strength. The reason that I bring that issue to your attention is that I am specifically worried about TRADOC, Training and Doctrine Command. We went down this road a few years ago when there were concerns about some of the hollowness or pulling a lot of manning out of TRADOC. Then we had to conduct hearings. I believe that part of the poor manning requirements were directly contributed to the deaths of the four Rangers that we had, the students in 1995. It also contributed to the crisis we had in the Army with regard to our basic training and advanced training, call it the Army sexual misconduct problems. So when I read that, please give me some assurances how you are going to be able to do this without shortchanging TRADOC and what changes, if any, is TRADOC going to have to do to accommodate if that may be forthcoming.
To General Ryan, I was looking at for fiscal year 2000 all of our authorized numbers, the floor, the floor with the flex estimate, and the FY 2001. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps are going to stay within the law. You are not. Of course, that doesn't please me that the Air Force is going to be breaking the law. Now, we have gone in and plussed up last year and put you—we provided significant additional resources to meet some of your recruiting shortfalls. So I am priced by your testimony today that you are projecting that you are not going to meet the requirements. If you would, address that a little further for me.
On health care, I would like for each of you to prioritize among the range of health care reforms that the Joint Chiefs thought necessary for the retiree population. Which one or two specific reforms would you recommend be enacted first.
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I also with regard to the Anthrax vaccine immunization program, General Ryan, I would like for you to give us a quick update where you are. As a matter of fact, each of the Services could address that because there is something out there that is puzzling me, General Ryan. Are our scientists so good to have genetically engineered a vaccine that only has effects to pilots, not tankers, not sailors, not Marines? Help us out there.
And, last, I have great concerns—let me first express a great deal of gratitude to the Commandant of the Marine Corps and Admiral Johnson for your work with the concerns of Vieques and the range. The more I thought about this and the more that I have worked with both of you gentlemen, I have become more uncomfortable about precedents. What are we going to do if we end up paying money? The money now being projected to come out of HUD, not DOD monies. Do we lose control over that? Is it going to be seen as a bribe?
What about other ranges around the country? Maybe there is an Indian reservation that wants to take back sacred grounds, and they go and take it and then they make demands upon you for money; in Okinawa or other ranges. So the precedent is really concerning to me.
Thank you, gentlemen.
General SHINSEKI. I will start, Mr. Buyer. Your question with regard to TRADOC, the requirement to man or the effort to man our divisions and our armored cavalry regiments initially and then other early deploying units to 100 percent is driven by the turbulence and the fact that that is where in our units the heavy lifting for multiple deployments is carried. And so the intent is to reduce the burden and get control of the turbulence. I would tell you that as we begin to move personnel in that direction there is no intent to make TRADOC the bill payor. All other units will share that reduction, a fair share, with the exception that TRADOC drill instructors, recruiters and U.S. Army Reserve Command (USAREC), and platform instructors like Ranger school instructors will be top priority for manning at the highest levels, 100 percent. So we will look after that piece.
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To answer to the second issue that you asked me, I would say health care for the retirees over 65, senior supplemental, and mail ordinary pharmaceuticals is where I would say immediate relief would be helpful.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would, as to the prioritization, I am right with General Shinseki. I think the number one thing we could do to ensure that particularly the over 65 population believes that we are going to take care of them is the pharmacy benefit. That ought to be at the top of the list.
General RYAN. On the several questions you asked, sir, first of all, we have no intent nor is there any motive for us to try to break the law with respect to end strength. In fact, the motivation is exactly the other way around, and that is that there is no way that I would want my service to be under the strength required to do the jobs that we are given particularly with the op-tempo that we have on this force today. Unfortunately, we have been unable to both retain or recruit over the last several years at the levels that we had planned on. For one thing, the Air Force recruiting service, the sides of our recruiting service is one quarter of that of the other services. For every one we have on the street, they have four in each of the Services. So it is very difficult for us to compete internally. That is why we are ramping up, as you all have allowed us to do, with the funding last year, our recruiters on the street and also our advertising. We think that 360,000, about, is the right size for the active duty size of the United States Air Force. In fact, we had RAND do a study for us over the last five months that validated that figure for us. That is about where we are right now and we are struggling not to go under it, even though it does not meet the cap that we set for the year which was a reality for us.
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I agree with Admiral Johnson. I think that the top priority, after we have funded in the medical side those things that we have asked for in prime remote for our people outside the catchment areas and doing away with the co-pays, is to look at the pharmacy benefits for our retirees. I think that is a very important issue. It is what I hear out there often.
I don't think, with respect to Anthrax, they are generally engineered to only affect pilots. We have had 90 individuals in the United States Air Force who have been punished or dismissed for not taking the vaccine of 115,000 who we have inoculated, begun inoculation. That is a very small percentage of the force. And of that 90, a very small percentage of that is pilots.
General JONES. Sir, with regard to health care for retirees over 65, I associate myself with my colleagues. Those are the right priorities.
Anthrax, the Marine Corps continues to inoculate for those Marines that are most likely to go into the regions where that vaccine would be the most beneficial. I would have to provide the exact percentage for the record in terms of the force, but it is proceeding along satisfactorily.
I take your comments with regard to Vieques aboard. As I mentioned earlier, I think access to our training ranges and our bases is going to be a problem in the 21st century and this is one indication.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to all of you gentlemen. My colleague and the ranking member asked you questions and asked you to answer it in 25 words or less. He was being very kind to you, believe it or not. Just a few years ago I think Admiral Johnson was the only member of the Joint Chiefs here at that time. He asked a question, just answer yes or no, and the question was: Were you promised health care for the rest of your life? All of you answered with one word, yes. So you are very fortunate he didn't ask a question for one word.
We are very lucky today. We have the very distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee and former presidential candidate with us here today. Of course, we also have the ranking member of the Budget Committee and maybe the future presidential candidate here. The reason I say that is your answers really should be very important this morning, as they all are, I know.
We went Tuesday through a thing by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a train wreck is ready to happen. If I remember the figures correctly, they said that we needed $100 billion a year more for the next 10 years in procurement. Well, we had another report that said they are wrong, we can't have that. So I said okay, maybe it is just $50 billion. Well, today in the unfunded things that you had, you just asked for about $16 billion and that includes military construction, O&M, and I assume base-ops, which we have really cut over the years.
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So where are we? If you read the report, do you have any comment about the report?
Before you answer that question, yesterday when the Secretary of Defense was here I had just left a meeting with the Army. Congressman Etheridge, who was a former superintendent of schools, told me about his experience with the Junior ROTC. Sometimes we find problems and we look for very difficult answers, and sometimes they are right in front of us. He used the figure 40 percent, I forget, General, what you said.
General JONES. I said 30 percent, but that is still high.
Mr. SISISKY. 30 percent. We are talking about peanuts, but we did add some money to that last year. I would like to know what has happened. It just seems to me that I think the only expense that we have in that recruitment is paying half the salary for the teacher. So it seems to me we ought to expand that program and open it up. I would like to hear your comments. I want to ask one more question, though.
Mr. KASICH. If the gentleman would yield, when they are answering all of that, I wish they would answer this question. Why is it 10 years ago we spent about $55,000 in O&M per troop. Today we spend about $75,000 per troop in O&M, which is about an increase of more than 35 percent in constant dollars for O&M. My concern is where is it going?
Mr. SISISKY. Well, if we can't get an answer—General Jones, you said something that really triggered me though. Forty school divisions in this country that refuse us to come in?
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General JONES. I said approximately 40 school districts have in place a policy that restricts access by recruiters to either lists of high school graduates or refuses access to the campus for purposes—.
Mr. SISISKY. Could you get a list to this committee?
General JONES. It might be different—well, it should be the same for all of us.
Admiral JOHNSON. We all hear that from our recruiters, Mr. Sisisky. That is a problem they deal with all around, day in and day out, and it is very frustrating.
Mr. SISISKY. We should let some people know that this is happening. Thank you. Anybody like to comment about (indicating)?
General SHINSEKI. Let me start with admitting that I haven't had the opportunity to read this study. I have heard about it. I can't quantify how those numbers are derived. The list of unfunded requirements provided is what the Army describes for 2001 that can be executed and provided, and so I will stand with that. But as you know in the out years here, Mr. Sisisky, we intend to transform. Those numbers become relevant as well.
In terms of Junior ROTC, my experience is the same as General Jones' both from a personal standpoint and a professional one. Members of my family participate in Junior ROTC programs all of the way out in Hawaii. I hear from family as well as lots of other parents in communities that find the Junior ROTC a great initiative in our schools. I believe that we are operating at the numbers we are authorized to operate at. Our indications are about 30 percent of those youngsters—we don't recruit them, as you know. We are not permitted to do that. But by virtue of the things that they like about that experience, about 30 percent of them end up joining the Army, either enlisting or going on to ROTC and then joining the officer population.
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Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Sisisky, I would also say I have not read the CSIS report. I am aware of a $100 billion figure. Let me put it into Navy terms. With this year's budget, we are at that point on the graph that hits $60 billion in procurement, you know that the slope is positive. For us in trying to say is $60 billion right or is $100 billion right, all I would comment is clearly for the Navy if you look at the number of aircraft we are buying this year, 128, and you look at the number of ships we are buying this year, 8, we know as a matter of record that the sustainment rate for us has to be at least 150 to 210 aircraft a year and 8 to 10 ships a year just to recapitalize a 305-ship Navy. So clearly the number has to be higher than it is.
As to the second point on JROTC, I share what my colleagues have said. It is a powerful tool for us. Specific to your point, what did we do last year, we stood up 55 more units. We are on a pathway now—we have about 434, I think the number, that is close—in JROTC units. We are on a pathway to take ourselves by fiscal year 2005 to 700, which is the limit. There is great interest in that. Even if the number is only 30 percent, that is a good number. But think about what we get out of the other 70 percent. They have exposure to us. They have exposure to the military. And the challenge of the education mandate that we all share in principals and school counselors and school districts that won't let us in, that is a powerful tool I think to educate whether or not they end up in the service. So it is a long way around saying it is well worth the investment for lots of different reasons.
Mr. SISISKY. If we need to lift a cap by the way, I think we can.
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General RYAN. With respect to the CSIS study, I scanned it. I did not read it in depth. But for the Air Force, the average age of a United States Air Force airplane today is 20 years old. In the next 15 years—over the next 15 years it will grow to 30 years old and that is if we execute every one of the modernization programs we have on the books today, on average. Which means that we are not recapitalizing the fleet to the extent that we need to for the future. How that impacts on that versus the 60 percent, I can't give you an answer to that today. But I think it is above 60 percent for sure.
On the Junior ROTC, we currently have over 600 schools where we have the Junior ROTC for the Air Force. We are growing that to 945, which is the limits of the law, by 2005 at about 45 a year as we add them in. It is a wonderful program for our kids. Kids that age want to belong to a gang. They want to be in a herd, and they ought to be in our herd and our gang. We encourage that program. And we have some wonderful people, wonderful retirees who work in that program. And we have done the analysis on it and almost 50 percent of the folks that go into Junior ROTC go on to one of our—out of the Air Force Junior ROTC go into one of the Services by enlisting or going to ROTC or going to one of the academies. So we support the program and would like to see the cap raised.
General JONES. Sir, with regard to the JROTC, I have mentioned in my testimony earlier that the Marine Corps is very excited about this program. You recently allowed us to expand to 210 units which is what we currently have. I might add that we have over 60 high schools that are queued up trying to also get a similar program started, which I think is very encouraging. I believe that figure could expand dramatically. I think they are intimidated a little bit by the fact there is a queue.
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With regard to the O&M figure, it costs about $16,000 per Marine. We have a $2.8 billion, which supports 172,000 active duty Marines. The increases for us are primarily due to our aging equipment. For example, our KC–130s are now 37 years old. Our CH–46s are 36 years old, out CH–53s are 29 and our UH–1s are 24 years old, just to give you a couple of examples. But it is primarily due to aging equipment, our contingency operations, the rise in our health care costs, and our infrastructure which has not been recapitalized. That accountings for—.
Mr. SISISKY. Because of the time, Mr. Chairman, I would ask if the rest of you would get the figure to the chairman to satisfy his—I mean, before he does the budget. I would appreciate it.
Just one more comment. It is interesting to know and I talk about the CSIS that the new president of that group will be the Deputy Secretary of Defense, presently Secretary Hamre. So we will be able to find that if we do indeed need $100 billion a year.
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief because we have votes. I want to thank each one of you for your service to the Nation. I want to single out Admiral Johnson. I know that you had mentioned this would probably be your last testimony before this committee in this capacity. I want to thank you for your service to our Nation, to the Navy, and for your friendship to me over the past several years. I appreciate it.
I have questions for both the CNO and the Commandant. One is on Vieques. I am deeply disturbed, as has been mentioned by a few of my colleagues, about the directive the President has issued regarding training on Vieques. I continue to believe that there is no substitute for live fire training prior to deployment. I do not have confidence that a referendum on the island will yield a positive result on that score.
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What alternatives are you looking at today to replace Vieques? Do you have any sense of the costs to duplicate the capability? And, also, what do you anticipate the cost of cleaning up the impact zone on Vieques to be if the referendum is not approved? And given the price tag that is going to be probably of this cleanup plus the $40 million that the President has already pledged up front, might it not be more cost effective to just buy out the 2500 families that are on the island and retain the rest of the property instead of paying out these vast sums anyway and having nothing to show for it? I am not saying that facetiously either.
For the Commandant, General, I have read through your written statement as well as listening to your testimony, and you touched upon both the importance of the maritime prepositioning force program to Marine Corps operational concepts and on the next generation of Maritime Preposition Force (MPF) ships. Could you please elaborate for the committee on the role of the MPF program and how the next generation of MPF ships might differ from the current generation?
And, also, I was very pleased to see that your testimony mentioned the importance of acquiring Blount Island, which is a logistical hub for the MPF program, an acquisition which you know this Congress began funding in the fiscal year 2000 budget cycle. Could you please comment on the relationship between the MPF program and the Blount Island facility, not just in the context of the current MPF fleet, but in the next generation of MPF ships as well. Thank you.
Admiral JOHNSON. If I could comment, ma'am, on Vieques, I would first agree with you completely that there is no substitute for live fire. We haven't found a better way. I don't think that we will, certainly not any time soon. So that is a fundamental part of our training and will stay so.
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The alternatives? We are looking at lots of them. But for now I would tell you that we are training and certifying the battle groups and ours by what I probably would refer to as a patchwork of opportunities. Some of them live, some of them inert, some of them at sea, some of them at shore, some of them here in Continental United States (CONUS), and some of them in the forward theater which is something that we have never really relied on before. We would have to continue to do that until we get a little more clarity on what is really going to happen.
Truthfully, whether the referendum happens and how we deal with this is going to be determined I think by what kind of relationship gets established in the next few months. Quite frankly, we haven't even started. That has to happen first. We will have a much better sense of it from them and a pathway forward. We believe very strongly that that live impact area should stay in use. We believe that it can be done safely. We believe it can be done in a nonintrusive way to the citizens of Vieques. Now we have to convince them of that fact and work together. We are committed to doing so.
General JONES. With regard to Vieques, let me just say that you are absolutely correct, there is no substitute for live fire. It is a defining characteristic of that range. It is of utmost importance that we resolve the impediments that preclude us from training there just as quickly as we can. Failure to do so will require finding an alternative, and I think the CNO and I have on a daily basis had those kinds of discussions on how to do that. But I thank you for pointing out the importance of live fire. It is absolutely critical to the Naval Expeditionary Force.
With regard to the Blount Island facility and its relation to the MPF and the MPFs of the future, this is a core war fighting competency that absolutely must be preserved. I mentioned earlier that we have recently revitalized the Marine Expeditionary Brigade program. These are absolutely tied to the maritime preposition squadrons. When you marry the Marines up with the squadrons they become a maritime preposition force, and they can support the war-fighting CINCs today with their robust capability with combined arms to include air, ground, and sea assets supported by our United States Navy in our maritime preposition ships.
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Blount Island is one of the two jewels in the crown of the United States in prepositioning. The other one is owned by the Army in Charleston. An independent study several years ago was conducted by the joint staff and concluded that, in fact, it is in the national interest to have two such facilities. With the frequency of which hurricanes are slamming into the East Coast of the United States, we should not put all of our preposition assets into one location.
We fully expect that we can and should make the case that Blount Island should be acquired because it would be the springboard for our maritime preposition squadrons, the maintenance of the equipment that is on those squadrons and the ships, and the ability to respond to the CINCs' war-fighting requirements and crisis contingencies on the scene, which is really the realm of naval expeditionary forces.
With regard to the MPF of the future, the next step is an analysis of alternatives and operational requirements documents in the Pentagon. We will need $50 million to examine and exploit the required technologies. The buyout of our current ship lease also occurs between 2009 and 2011. Buying that out and actually owning those ships would represent a significant cost savings we could transition to the MPF of the future which will be much more robust and more capable and be able to sustain our forces from the sea with an ever increasing capability.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you.
Admiral JOHNSON. We will give you the cost figures, Mrs. Fowler. I will give you those for the record.
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[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
The CHAIRMAN. We have a vote on. We better break for just a few minutes, and we will be right back.
[Recess.]
The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will be in order. Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of the witnesses today, the Chiefs who are with us today. Admiral Johnson, no question you have been a great leader. We hate to see you move on, but we wish you the best in whatever you do.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, sir.
Mr. ORTIZ. I do have a question for you. I do share your interests in the training that is necessary to qualify your vessels. But at the same time I am convinced that this might be the last time that the Navy will have the opportunity to better the relationship with Vieques and work with the local people there. With regard to that, would you comment on your vision with regard to how the Navy intends to move forward on the matter to include when the promised level officer would be reporting for duty? And something else that disturbed me at the same time is I understand and I have been informed that the Navy stopped some approved Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) funding improvements at Roosevelt Roads that would benefit all of the assigned personnel on the island who are authorized patrons. Would you share these two questions about the flag officer, when would he be reporting for duty at Vieques, and what about the MWR funding?
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Admiral JOHNSON. I will take the second one first. We did put in suspension—that might not be the proper word, but it works—suspension a number of the projects that we had down there just to see what was going to come of this thing as we worked through it. Now, those have been turned back on, specifically the ones at Roosevelt Roads, that has all been turned back on. That should have happened last week at the latest. As to the first point, the flag officer, it will be a matter of days. As a practical matter he is already working the issues, but he will be formally activated within the week.
Mr. ORTIZ. I guess the next question would be for all of you. I have frequently challenged the services regarding the adequacy of repair parts. This has been a long, long problem. We have put in a lot of money. I understand that still it will take an additional 18 months to be able to get the parts through the pipeline. I would like for each of you to provide some insights into your Services' plans of modernizing the infrastructure, including the parts—I don't want to take too much time. We have some other members that are junior to us and give them the opportunity to ask questions, but to be able to sustain those who are forward deployed, we need parts. If it is going to take 18 months to get the parts through the pipeline, is this modernization program going to help shorten the time? Maybe you can help me.
General SHINSEKI. Mr. Ortiz, let me try to address that in just a couple of snippets here. In our repair parts inventories, we design a model that has a failure expectation in it and then we decide how to stock our bin, so to speak. It is never a perfect science. As we do this we get more information. And that again begins to craft what the right numbers are and the repair parts. We are probably not as conservative as we could be because to do that would involve tremendous parts inventory resources sitting on a shelf someplace. We do look at that closely. Every now and then we come up with a situation, as we did with the Apache, where we have an incident not quite catastrophic, but there is a failure of a key piece that was never expected to fail. We get in there and take a look at it and find that the design or quality was something other than what we anticipated. So we put all of the helicopters down and say go and inspect that piece on every helicopter. When we find there is wear that we don't like we go into this crash program. I think this is what you are referring to.
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On the one hand, it is not a perfect science. On the other hand, we do err on the side of safety. The point that I would make if it were not for our depots, and in this particular case Corpus Christi, which you know well, they have bailed us out on the Apache response. With their help by the end of February, maybe early March, we will have this problem addressed. What will get carried over is our responsibility to get those units back up flying and trained, but the parts arriving where crews can begin to hang hangar bearings, Corpus Christi has been a great contributor.
Mr. ORTIZ. Admiral.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would only add, Mr. Ortiz, the business of repair parts for aircraft and the repair parts for ships is a very complex matter, as you well know. It is also very frustrating certainly for thousands of us on the deck plates and the flight lines, but not without its frustrations for people in Washington. Indeed, it does take forever to get things back on stride. This thing didn't happen overnight, we won't fix it overnight. And that is frustrating. We have put a lot of money, extra money, into ship and aircraft maintenance and parts. Only now could you even say we are beginning to see some of that on the receive end. But it is not apparent.
I could cite for you cannibalization rates that are down, but I could also take you to another place and show you that by a certain type, model, and series the cannibalization rates are up off the page. I take no comfort in where we have come except that I believe this deserves a level of regularity that we all have not even begun to scratch the surface on. We have a lot of work going on in the aviation side of the Navy with what we call Aviation Maintenance Supply Readiness (AMSR). That is really taking us to a new level of knowledge of what we have to do, but it is bigger than parts. When you take aircraft and fly them at two to four times the utilization rates because they are low-demand high-density assets like the EA–6B, like the EP–3, like the P–3 fleet in general, that changes everything. As the force ages, that changes everything and it costs more money and takes more parts.
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So all of that said, we have got a lot of work to do still to deliver at the flight line and on the deck plates.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you. General Ryan.
General RYAN. I would concur with what has been said before. Aging fleet and underfunding for several years in the mid-1990s has resulted in a fleet out there whose mission capability rate has dropped 10 percent across the board. Then you add to that the op tempo that we have been under for the last few years and you have a system in stress. What we have tried to do with your help is over the last several years fully fund our depot maintenance and fully fund our spares accounts and flying hour spares, but that takes about 18 months, as you said, to digest through the system before they show up on the shelf. We are getting our first indications that that is about to improve in that of late we have cut what we call the back orders, and that is the number of things that you ordered that were on the shelf when you went to take them off the shelf. We have cut that when it didn't happen by one-third over the last six months.
So we are starting to feel some of that come through the system. We were also stymied a little bit by our depot closures and the movement of our two depots which had an impact on spare part repair capability. We are just now recovering from that now. I am anticipating, being an internal optimist, that we are going to see a turnaround for our spares availability for our folks out there working so hard to keep this aircraft and equipment first rate, by March or April of this year some turnaround because digestion would have occurred.
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General JONES. Mr. Ortiz, I won't repeat what my colleagues have said because I would just be saying the same thing in a different way. Let me just say that the logistics and the spare parts and the logistics entailed is extraordinarily important to the Marine Corps because most of our logistic supportability is in the active force. So when we deploy our forces, our advertisement says that they would be anywhere from 15 to 60 days self-sustainable. So the flow of parts and spare parts and logistic support is very important. It goes into our baseline planning before we ever do a deployment.
I would like to underscore the contribution that our two depots make, Barstow and Albany, Georgia, to the sustainment of the force. It is a very valuable asset. Certainly, if we are going to have any service capability they would be very much required and we value the quality of their work. We are currently experimenting with an integrated logistics concept which is going to be at the vanguard of combat logistics. And we are looking at our whole system to see how we can improve the tooth-to-tail ratio in terms of getting the spare parts to the user in a timely sense. We are moving away from some of the traditional concepts of maintaining large inventories and trying to learn from the commercial successes where major corporations have, in fact, been successful in getting end items to the user very quickly but not through the traditional stockpiling that we have seen in the past.
So I hope that a year from now I will be able to give you the results of some of these pioneering concepts. We are very excited about their potential.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you. We appreciate the fine work that you do. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Kuykendall.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three or four items just individually. Earlier Mr. Kasich talked about the increase of the O&M cost. To myself on its face it seems like the older your planes and trucks and ships get the higher the year-end cost goes. You might just comment individually that by driving down the average age of your fleets, no matter what the equipment is, do you see a way to come up with some money out of O&M that you can use to recapitalize with? Maybe that is factored in. We don't talk about that very much. But he is hitting around the point that we need somehow to get this trade-off on O&M going in favor of recapitalizing, not working the other way, working against us.
Vieques, I would like to associate my remarks with anybody here that says that range must stay available for all of the combined forces. We have sent our forces from the East Coast into combat operations literally from the day they sailed out of the port almost for both the Marines and the Navy. Maybe the last ten years, ever since we have been bombing Iraq and having Balkan operations, they don't ever get any place else to stop. They go and start shooting when they show up on scene or flying in the hot air zone. We cannot afford, it is unconscionable that we would think about sending anybody out that did not have that combined arms training because the day they show up on-scene they are going to make a forced assault, they are going to make an attack against defense. Just yesterday again we were attacking air defenses in Iraq. That has not gone away from us.
I have the West Coast equivalent in my district. There aren't any civilians on that range. We just bomb it when we need to. We need to do the same thing in Vieques and get it operational for all of our forces.
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Bigger question. Many of us have listened to these last couple of days of testimony from people talking about how we need to re-equip and recapitalize the force. In common with that discussion is then do we have the capability right now if we have to go fight this two MRC, major regional conflict? Last year we tested the Air Force's ability to do one, and, in fact, I had a couple of briefings given to me on what would happen in the middle of May last year if we had to rotate the force to Korea. It was doable, but it was scary listening to how the briefing went on how we did that. I would like each of you to maybe comment on where do you think we are on being able to pull two MRCs off today with that older equipment. Some of you have retention and recruiting problems. You have a mixture of issues that might effect that and I would just like maybe a generalized opinion of where we are today being able to do that. Thank you.
General SHINSEKI. I will touch on the O&M issue first. I say that recapitalization is very much one. When I talk about transformation in the Army, we are really talking about three things. One is the Science and Technology (S&T) investment today to design that future force. The second piece of that is the acquisition of a select number of brigades that give us a capability we don't have, brigades that we can move very quickly. The third piece of transformation is recapitalization of the legacy force that we have today. Not just maintaining them but key points on select systems, putting them back into the depots. This is where the depots for us are key, taking them to zero time zero mile condition so when they come back we have more life in those systems.
With regard to your question about the two Major Theater War (MTW), it is a judgment that I have been asked to make before and I will stay consistent with that. We can execute a two major theater war scenario. The first MTW would be moderate risk. The second one, risk would be in the high category with risk here measured in the amount of time it would take us to bring that second MTW to conclusion. You measure that risk in national treasure, lives and expended dollars. What drives that condition is the business of the Army today, where it is. We have 130,000 soldiers deployed overseas, about 30,000 of them deployed operationally in places like Kosovo, Bosnia, the Sinai. So to meet the time lines of the MTW scenario we would have to collect these folks and get them reorganized and oriented on where they would end up fighting.
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Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Kuykendall, in terms of the O&M, I agree that the recapitalization efforts and the new systems that we would bring on would eventually generate savings in the O&M account because they do have—it is not unlike the cars now that you can buy that go 15,000 miles between oil changes and 100,000 miles between tune-ups. The same principle applies to these new systems that we are buying. You would realize it on end sayings. The challenge is getting them in and online. As programs slide and ramps flatten, it becomes more problematic to deal with that year by year. It gets into some of the things that we talked about with Mr. Ortiz.
I concur in your remarks on Vieques wholeheartedly and I will just let it stand for the record. It is critically important to us. As I said in my opening remarks, General Jones and I—and all of the chiefs will say this, I am sure—there is no way that we would send our troops into harm's way until they are adequately trained and prepared for the missions. Doing that without something like Vieques, without something like San Clemente for us on the West Coast and the synergy of ranges that you enjoy out there would be a huge challenge. We are looking for alternatives, but it is not easy.
Finally, to the MTWs, a couple of comments. We have talked before from the Navy perspective the sizing and shaping metric for the U.S. Navy is not the two MTWs, but it is the day-to-day business that we are asked to conduct out forward. Having said that, we do have the capability to service two MTWs. I believe that it is important for this country to maintain across all of the Services that two MTW capability.
My assessment of the risks involved is right in line with General Shinseki's. I would consider the first one to be a moderate category. The second one would definitely be high risk. That risk translates to time, and that time translates to casualties or national treasures, as he says. That is where I am, sir.
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General RYAN. On the O&M costs, you are dead on. The older these systems get the more they cost. The difference between flying, say, a C–17 and a C–5 today is almost half. If we could recapitalize the fleet to aircraft like the C–17, that has a 90 percent reliability rate versus a 60 percent reliability rate on a C–5, not only would it be cheaper but a lot more effective.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. I think you are all going to go the same way on that point. I think with that kind of thought process it would be great to have a lot more urgency and a lot more pressure applied to us to say, fellows, I have got to replace H–46s with B–22s. I have got to replace old fighters with F–18s and whatever comes next for the Air Force. I have got to replace my ships and tanks. I don't see that much pressure coming from you. You are all just concurring with that, and I think that is a greater area were your emphasis might pay better rewards in today's environment.
General RYAN. I have to replace my F–15s with F–22s.
Ranges for all of us are vital. That is where we are hardening the force and sharpening it. We must keep our ranges accessible and usable. Vieques is important to, I think, all of our Services as it is to the Navy and the Marine Corps. The two MRCs, Rick and Jay and Jim, I think all of us agree that the first one is medium and the second one is very difficult for the Air Force because of our loss of readiness over the last few years, about a 25 percent drop. We are first responders for both of the MTWs. So where the halt phase occurs in those MTWs has a lot to do with how rapidly we get there. I associate myself with high risk in the second.
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General JONES. Sir, in an effort not to repeat what you have heard three times, I will just say for the Marine Corps we have four pillars of our investment: One is people, the second is infrastructure, the third is modernization, and the fourth, which really takes a lot of our time and resources is maintaining what we call our legacy systems. We are always going to have such systems but some are more expensive than others. We are spending a lot of time maintaining very old equipment, albeit that we have some exciting new technologies and capabilities coming online. We spend a lot of time looking at commercial-off-the-shelf-type of acquisitions and we are doing that. The Marine Corps war fighting lab spends a lot of time and resources trying to find those things that will bypass costly R&D programs and get things in the hands of individual Marines as soon as possible.
Vieques is and other ranges like it are national treasures and assets. We have to do everything that we can to preserve them. The CNO and I are very proud of the—and I am sure my other two colleagues are proud of our relationships we have in the communities that surround our bases throughout the Nation. Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is an emotional issue and it is because we have such good relations it is an emotional issue. I think we enjoy the great support of the people that live close to the bases. There are a lot of good benefits to that association, patriotic support is one of them, economic association is another. But also the exposure of the American military to mainstream USA is also very important.
With regard to two MRCs, I associate myself with my colleagues. If I could add just one point which is rather different for the Marine Corps. Our reductions have been in the order of 13 percent whereas those of my colleagues' larger Services have been far more in the last 10 years, something approaching 40 percent. What that means by the Marine Corps is we have been blessed by your support to maintain our 3-division, 3-wing capability. So we are able to execute our global mission and our global responsibilities in support of one MTW or two MTWS. But I concur that in the aggregate, moderate risk is associated with the first and high risk associated with the second.
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Thank you, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you four gentlemen for being here.
General Jones, I did listen to what you had to say, and I would be honored to have a copy of your remarks. They are right on target.
What really troubles me is that while you just outlined, the four of you, $16 billion in unfunded needs, our colleagues are across the street each giving a speech to deprive the Nation of $18 billion of revenue for each of the next 10 years. Without listening to the needs, they are over there lining up behind each other to cut taxes by $18 billion. If you throw in the cost of healthcare for our retirees, it is anywhere from $5 to $10 billion in unfunded need. So we are looking now at $21 billion unfunded in need.
As we speak, our colleagues want to cut taxes. Absolutely brilliant. Now, we can't control what the Administration does. We sure as hell ought to be able to control what the Congress does.
Admiral, real quick, everyone knows we need Vieques. The Navy has been a phenomenal neighbor in South Mississippi. You have been horrible neighbors in Vieques. What really troubles me in the 90 days that I have paid a lot of attention to it, I haven't seen you do one thing to change that.
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The United States Seabees go all over the world providing waterlines for folks in Third World countries. There are neighborhoods in this little town that don't have running water. You ought to be doing it right now. They have a hospital that needs corpsmen. You ought to be doing it right now. Do you want somebody to like you? Take care of their kid for them.
These are not big bucks things. These are things that you do every day around the world anyway. If we can do it for folks in other countries, we can do it for our fellow Americans. And they are other fellow Americans. It is that simple.
I have looked at the numbers of Puerto Ricans versus Mississippians in the Armed Forces as far as Medal of Honor recipients. It is almost identical.
I keep hearing this mañana. You need to start today, Admiral, if you want to keep that range; and we have got to keep that range.
General Shinseki, my request to you would be, there is a $1.6 billion aid package for Colombia that is going to be coming up pretty soon. It involves buying about 30 or 40 Blackhawk helicopters. Until the Congress of the United States, that has the constitutional responsibility to decide where and when young Americans go off to war, decides what we want to do in Colombia, it should be my request that you train those pilots here in the United States where their instructors and mechanics aren't going to get shot at. I would rather see this country make a deliberate decision as to what we are going to do in Colombia rather than just stumble into it and react when some pilots and mechanics get killed. That is our job, but we are not doing our job yet. In the meantime I don't want any of you guys getting unnecessarily killed.
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The other thing I would ask all four of you, and—again, I asked the question last year—how many you of brought it up, when you had the opportunity to speak to the Commander in Chief, how important it is to take care of health care for retirees? Because I am going to tell you they are killing you. They are writing letters to the editor every day telling kids not to join. They are out there on the streets every day telling young people not to join. You have 100 professional recruiters in my district and you have got 14,000 military retirees telling people not to join. Guess who wins?
I know you have all of these unfunded needs, and I know you have got the whole world to worry about, but you know what? Every single American over age 65 is eligible for Medicare. That is the law of the land. We pay the bill to whatever doctor they choose to go to. That is also the law of the land.
Why not ask the Commander in Chief to allow those Medicare-eligible retirees to go to your hospitals and pump approximately $2 to $3 billion worth of that Medicare money, that is going to be spent anyway, into your hospitals? That doesn't come at the expense of the F-18, that doesn't come at the expense of your light Howitzer, and it fulfills the promise.
I think if we all search our hearts that is pretty close to the promise those guys were made when they joined way back then. There wasn't even a TRICARE back then. There were base hospitals back then.
We can do it without, again, dipping into your budget. But you have to ask for it. You are the experts. You have a heck of a lot more credibility on this subject than anybody on this side is ever going to have. Until you ask for it, it is not going to happen. We really could do it this year. If we could find $18 billion in tax breaks that help some people, we can find $3 billion to fulfill the promise of life-time health care to people that gave 20 years to our country. It is real simple.
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The last thing I would like for each of you to do, and I heard General Shinseki say it yesterday and I want to compliment him for it, I think it has been devastating to the morale of the force and devastating towards recruitment, the drawdowns. In almost every year that I have been up here, either you or your predecessor have come to me and said, I have to lay off 12,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 people. Who has been harmed? Those poor 18-year-olds a couple of thousand miles from here who only read the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Air Force Times, because every one of them presumes it is them that is getting laid off.
General Shinseki, I want to compliment you for saying, not on my watch, we are not going one soldier lower on my watch. I would sure encourage each of the remaining three of you to say that and get as big a headline in the Army Times as the gloom-and-doom experts do.
You are welcome to respond, because the aid package to Colombia is coming up, and I would really like to have your assurances that you are going to try to do the training here.
General SHINSEKI. I understand your concerns about the aid package, and I take your point on the training piece of that. To the degree that it can be influenced, we will look at how to train and where that training ought to be done.
I did include in my opening comments the retirees over 65, and the critical health care needs that they have is the one thing that I hear about emotionally as I go around. So I echo your concerns.
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On end strength, I have had several discussions where the question has been, what about the Army's end strength? My comment to you is I think we have an end strength problem in the Army. I am trying to get the analytics of that. But I do know, whichever way we go, it won't be lower. The soldiers that we have right now are stretched, covering all of the missions they are asked to do, and they do it very well. But we are asking a lot of them, and I thank you for reinforcing the point that I made yesterday, not one soldier less than we have today.
Admiral JOHNSON. Just a couple of comments, Mr. Taylor. The better neighbor aspect of Vieques, I take your point, and we will be. We are not yet. That was our decision as these negotiations were ongoing. Those negotiations are ongoing today and tomorrow here.
As I told Mr. Ortiz earlier, the leadership realignment is happening within the week. The things that you describe will start to happen now. And it is overdue. I agree with you. There is a lot we can do to win the hearts and minds and befriend the people of Vieques. We are committed to doing that.
Second point, I concur with General Shinseki on the retirees. We hear the same thing. The over 65, we have got to fix this. The mechanics of how we do that are the issue right now and not whether we will do it, I believe. I think it is a national commitment that we must all share together and work as hard as we can and fast as we can to put the ship right.
The end strength piece for the Navy, we in fact recall on the active side the QDR glide slope, brings us down to 369,000. In this year's budget, the 2001 budget that we have submitted, we hold ourselves at an end strength of 372,000 and believe that to be as low as we can go at this time. I have no intention of going any lower.
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General RYAN. I agree completely on the over 65s. We must do something. It is just how we do it.
On the drawdown, QDR was going to take us much lower than we are today. But it was based on assumptions that did not come true. We are trying to hold—in fact, I asked RAND to do a study that I mentioned earlier that said our end strength ought to be about 362,000 and hold there until we actually produce the kinds of savings that are anticipated by the assumptions that went into the QDR. So that is where we are levelling off.
General JONES. Mr. Taylor, on Vieques, I believe, as I said earlier, that there should be no reason why we cannot achieve the same relationships with the citizens of Vieques that we enjoy with our own citizens throughout the country and elsewhere and around the world. We will work very hard to do that.
With regard to health care, I think I am on the record with being totally supportive for fixing this gross inequity that exists. It is a moral obligation. We are talking about people who shaped the Nation in the 20th century, and they should not be left out in this time of economic prosperity. So I support anything we can do to fix that.
With regard to drawdowns, the Marine Corps active end strength is approximately 172,000 right now. That is clearly as low as any Commandant would prudently take its force. We have worked internally now for six months trying to find some savings in how we use that manpower. In 2001 we will return 2,100 Marines, as I mentioned earlier, to the combat rolls that are traditionally associated with Marines through some innovative substitutions and outright eliminations of the functions they are performing.
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I believe that we must do more. The last 3,000 man reduction in the Marine Corps was combat power. It was artillery battalions. It was infantry battalions. It was the shock absorber that makes a difference between a force that has a chance to recover from its rotational six-month deployments and build itself back up before they go out again. It has the result in translation and work in cycling the force faster and faster. So we are doing internal relooks to figure out what the right number is. My guess is it is probably somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 more than what we currently have right now that would get us right back to where we need to be.
Thank you for that question.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the ranking member also for your leadership on this committee as well as the other chairman.
I wanted you to follow along for just a moment Mr. Taylor's comments about frustrations as to different types of tax credits and tax relief that we debate.
This would be the second year that I have had a bill in, H.R. 1055, that at best is modest but would give a $500 tax credit to men and women in uniform on food stamps. Mr. Taylor, I know you are a co-sponsor of that bill and several members in here, including the Chairman; but I must say that I think it is absolutely unacceptable, it is absolutely deplorable that any man or woman that is willing to die for this Nation is on food stamps.
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I will continue to go to the floor of the House one night each week with a photograph of a blowup—it happens to be a Marine, but he is in fatigues so you could say with any service, with a little girl standing on his feet, two years old looking at the camera, a daughter named Bridget in his arms who is about two months old, and he is getting ready to deploy for Bosnia.
I think that we as a Congress, both Republican and Democrat, we are not doing our job when we cannot find $59 million over 10 years to help these men and women on food stamps. I just want to make that statement because, Mr. Chairman, this bothers me greatly that we cannot find $59 million to give a modest relief to those on food stamps. Many of you probably know this, but those men and women overseas that would qualify in America for food stamps, they do not receive food stamps because it is a national program.
Another issue I want to bring up and then I have a couple of questions, I just got off the phone doing a 15-minute interview about Anthrax. I will say to those of you on the committee that this is an issue that impacts on all of the services. Some people think maybe it is just the Air Force because there are more members of the Air Force that are making decisions to leave the Air Force because of this issue.
I am not going to ask the service chiefs, Mr. Chairman, but my question would be—because I think I would know their answer—is the fact that isn't it sad that we would lose one man or woman in uniform who wants to serve this country because the Department of Defense cannot convince them that the vaccine is safe and that the vaccine is necessary? I as a Member of Congress think that it is a tragedy to lose one man or woman in any service because this government cannot convince them to trust this government that the shot is safe. But I am not going to ask that question because I believe that you would agree that it is a tragedy to lose one man or woman over a vaccine, to lose or be court-martialed over this issue.
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As you know, I have Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in my district, I have Camp Lejeune, I have Cherry Point Station, and I also have the Coast Guard base, Elizabeth City. I am very proud to represent this district. I am very proud of the men and women in uniform. I am proud of those that have served this Nation.
I want to associate myself with the discussion by Mr. Taylor. I have been out most of the time so I haven't heard anyone else—you will have to forgive me for that—as it relates to our veterans. Many times they have to beg, and that is a blight on this country, that our men and women who have served this Nation, whether in peacetime or wartime, have to beg for help. I am delighted that under your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking member that this committee in the last five years has started addressing this problem and making it a priority of this committee.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask General Jones a couple of questions, if I might.
I had the pleasure, I think with Mr. Snyder, to go on a ride in the V–22 a few months back. I believe in the President's request, in his budget request, he has requested I believe 16 new V–22s. My question to you, knowing how important this machine is for the Marine Corps and the future of the Marine Corps, would you say that this is satisfactory? Or if you could write the check you would like to see a few more? Would you please speak to that?
General JONES. I would be glad to, sir.
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We do have 16 V–22s requested. That is the correct number. In the unfunded lists we requested two more for 2001. Our long-term goal would be to get up to an acquisition by about 36 per year for the most effective and economical rate. So—I have indicated that in the unfunded priorities list.
Mr. JONES. Thank you.
The other question is in regard to the AAAV. I know that that has been the number one ground priority of the Marine Corps. Is that the still the number one priority?
General JONES. It is, sir.
Mr. JONES. Let me close. I just had those two questions.
To General Ryan, I want to say that I am very pleased to have had the pleasure to be on base numerous times. And the men and women in uniform—I want to end my comments with this.
After the 1998 election, I went to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. I had the pleasure of meeting with Colonel Green, who flew up from Texas to talk about retention and the concerns. Coming out of that meeting, they were bringing down the colors. After the colors were brought down and the honor guard disbanded, I met a young airman who was—I remember he was much taller than I am, about six three or four. I thanked him for his service to our Nation and the military. I mentioned that we had given, in thanks to this leadership, an increase—it was not enough, but it was an increase. He said, Congressman, I would tell you, I appreciate very much that increase, but I would rather that money to be spent on parts so I can keep air crews in the air, pilots in the air.
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So to each one of you gentlemen, thank you for your leadership and your service to this Nation. The American people are very lucky to have the men and women in uniform, and they are very lucky to have your leadership, and I thank you. I will close by saying may God bless you and God bless our men and women in uniform.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Snyder.
Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The bad news, gentlemen, is you miss lunch again. We appreciate you being here.
I want to begin by asking two questions for the record. I had submitted a question for the record March 11 of 1999 to one of the service chiefs at this hearing and got an answer back today. I had another one submitted for the record, and it took about six months to get an answer.
For the record, what is your turnaround time in responding to questions from a member of this committee other than the chairman, subcommittee chairman, ranking members, and what will it be in the future? If you could do that for the record, please, we could make it like a contest.
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[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. SNYDER. Admiral Johnson, just a comment. I continue to think that the arsenal—the concept of the arsenal ship, seemed to me to have no flaws in it. I finally decided perhaps the flaw was in its name. Congressman Ryan is not here, but—our great American distance runner—perhaps we could call it the Jim Ryan—smart, fast, soft-spoken and lethal. But I hope that is something that you are continuing to work on.
General Ryan, I think I am one of the few people who at some of these hearings of our military construction subcommittee talk about the need—eventually, we will have another round of BRAC. It seems to be—you seem to be the service that most forcefully advocates for it. I assume that is true. I understand that another couple of rounds of BRAC would probably save in annualized savings of $3 to $5 billion. Do you know how much of that is Air Force-specific?
General RYAN. No, sir, because we have not gone through the process of selecting which bases and then reorganizing the force. It depends on how you reorganize the force where you get your savings from overhead. We haven't done the homework.
Mr. SNYDER. We have been working on a bill that I may file soon just to at least get some discussion about that. I have been thinking about maybe doing an Air Force-specific bill. I have an Air Force base in my district, and I would have to do some explaining back home. Do you think that would help you at all or would it be better to be in the context of the other services? I know the Marine Corps doesn't have much need around BRAC.
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General RYAN. I think all of the services need to be included, because there are some crossing of lines in depots and other areas that make a difference in the bed-down of our force. We have a lot of places where we have joint bed-downs. They make a lot of sense and save us money.
Mr. SNYDER. I understand.
Another question, General Ryan. I have generally been supportive of the F–22. But this whole issue of the forward bases I know it is a question you have thought about in the past.
Some of us, Mr. Kuykendall and Mr. Thornberry, were at a breakfast this morning and we were talking about this with one of these think tank groups.
Just a couple of quotes here. This is from Admiral Johnson. ''Over the past ten years it has become evident the proliferating weapon and information technology is what will enable our foes to attack the ports and airfields needed for the forward deployment of our land-based forces.''
A quote from a retired general from India: ''The United States will be unable to prosecute significant military operations in the South Asia region without the benefit of forward bases. This is the proverbial Achilles heel.''
As you look ahead 10 and 15 and years with regard to the F–22, does it concern you where we are going to park those things and the possibility of their ability to function being cut off because of inability to have them forward deployed?
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General RYAN. I think all of us worry about the vulnerability of our forces where they are, land, sea or air, in their deployed locations because of the great reach that would-be adversaries are getting from the technology that is out there today.
The flip side of that is, in most of the places where we as a Nation would put our forces, we would have allies along with us. Very seldom would we do things alone. Those allies and safe havens forward I think we will still be able to operate out of. Then there is some question if we cannot get basing forward, if we cannot get our forces forward because allies will not allow us to, then there is some question about the viability of that being in our national interest.
Mr. SNYDER. I think it is a problem. Some of us sent a letter last year asking for a hearing on just the strategic lift capabilities. I think this whole issue of forward deployment is one we all need to be thinking about more, probably.
I want to ask a question about transformation. We have had—everybody uses the word, and you are working on it. I am not sure we all mean the same thing.
For General Jones and General Shinseki, as you look ahead, as the men out there that have the muddy boots, are you satisfied that there is sufficient discussions and cooperations between the folks in your organizations that are working on transformation, that we are not going to transform part of the Army into the Marine Corps and part of the Marine Corps is going to be transformed into forces similar to what the Army has? Are we satisfied that that kind of coordination is going on?
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General SHINSEKI. I would start by saying I think that will always be something that both the Commandant and I will have to work at personally to drive that kind of cooperation and collaboration.
We unveiled the Army's vision in October of last year. Part of that unveiling—I took the vision itself that we had been working on, and I went and visited General Jones, put it down on the table. This was even before I had shared it with all of the general officers in the Army. I asked him to take a look at it, what he thought about it, discussed it; and I asked him to red-team it to see if it made sense from a brother ground component's perspective. I was very well served by the comments provided back.
So the Army's transformation is intended to be complimentary, not competitive, to the ground operations that both General Jones and I see as part of the strategy of this country in fighting and winning wars. We would both say that we have never been on a battlefield that was over-crowded, but we also know that both of us have discrete missions that we must be able to do if this ability to prosecute warfare in the way that I described it, to pick a time and place where we want to go to war, with the method of our choosing, to seize the initiative, build momentum quickly and win decisively—both of us have a role in that, and we will be collaborative in that effort.
General JONES. Mr. Snyder, I would echo the Chief of Staff of the Army's comments in that regard. Complementary is a good word to define our current relationship. I think we will come together in May of this year between the Army and the Marine Corps and have our first land warfare component conference for where we will discuss the various capabilities that the Army brings and the Marine Corps brings to the prosecution of any land campaign.
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Clearly, as I have said before, the Army of the United States brings decisive power to resolve a conflict on the ground. The Marine Corps's role is that of a force in readiness. It wins battles. It contributes to winning the wars. Neither of us do it in isolation. Our two colleagues sitting between us are very important players in that role as well.
As we become more joint as a result of the drawdowns, where no service can operate unilaterally, where the historical proportion that the Marine Corps brings to the warfight I recited in my testimony is an accurate measure of the contribution that we make, we will find that through working together we will eliminate unnecessary redundancies. We will not needlessly try to put everybody in the crisis response tip of the spear, and we will maintain the robustness that we must bring to the fight and prevail if things go the MTW route. And we will also be able to operate at the other end of the spectrum involving shaping forward presence and the like in order to deter conflict and continue the very important contribution that men and women in uniform bring globally to stabilize the regions and improve our relationships internationally and foster cooperation and seek to assist those countries who try to emulate our capabilities so they be come more interoperable with us.
Mr. SNYDER. I appreciate your comments.
One of the realities of the process here that we do, it is just the nature of it, we really focus on this on a year-by-year basis. This is an area of where you have to think far beyond election day. You are thinking years ahead. There is potential to do great things, but there is also the potential to make mistakes, and I think that coordination and collaboration is absolutely vital.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Skelton has a comment.
Mr. SKELTON. In reference, Mr. Snyder, to your comments on base closures and the like, there is, as I recall, a statute on the books that allows the Department of Defense to single out base one, two, three, four, et cetera. Of course, it is not very politically palatable, but I must tell you when I came to Congress in 1977 I was faced with just that. Harold Brown, the Secretary of Defense then, closed down the active duty Air Force base back home. So it has been done. I wonder if there is a will to do that minus a base closure which may be right around the corner someday.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Saxton.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentlemen, each, for your great patience with us here for staying all this time in answering our questions.
General Ryan, a number of us here have been involved for many years during the years of the development of C–17, and we were involved as well during—several years ago just before we went into production in finalizing the deal with the contractor and all of that. When we did that we dealt with the Air Force and the contractor and came up with a schedule of production which I thought everyone had agreed to. I also am very much aware of the need for lift, the shortage of lift.
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I was therefore, for those two reasons, taking those into account; and I was somewhat surprised to see the request this year for 12 C–17s instead of what I thought had been agreed upon, 15. Can you comment on the reasons for that?
General RYAN. When we looked at the schedule of deliveries over the next three-and-a-half years, and we did it with the company, there was an opportunity to allow within the line the purchase of the C–17 by Foreign Military Sales (FMS) or overseas direct sales, the UK being one of the customers who is looking at it right now. The company would like to keep a constant work flow going through the line. We would like to continue the delivery of the aircraft.
We were able to come to an agreement between us and the company to allow this to occur without, quite honestly, affecting the line or the multi-year deal that we had cut. So I think it is a win-win for both the company and the United States Air Force. If we can get overseas sales of the C–17, to help some of our allies who are normally with us in major operations to have that kind of lift capability also, I think it serves us all well.
Mr. SAXTON. Is the supposition that the number of units, number of airplanes produced over the long haul would be increased on an annual basis? Or are you saying that we are going to sell three overseas and three overseas indefinitely and permanently reduce our buy to 12?
General RYAN. No. We are looking at just one shot of three overseas. Then if that does not come to fruition, the way the multi-year contract is set we will continue the deliveries as we have been getting them all along so the production line will not be slowed down.
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Mr. SAXTON. The Air Force will receive 15 every year thereafter until the buy is completed?
General RYAN. It depends on whether the British come in and decide to buy. But the way it is structured right now—and I can have our folks come over and show us how this works—we will be able to continue to get the deliveries if the British do not take the option.
Mr. SAXTON. I will take you up on that. I would like to see them.
General RYAN. We will run them over, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Johnson, there was an article in the Washington Post this morning. The headline is, ''China and Russia Solidifying Military Ties.'' this article talks about two Russian-built destroyers, the first of which sailed the Strait of Taiwan this week. Apparently, they are armed with the vessel which would be the largest warship, it says, in the Chinese navy, would be equipped with sophisticated anti-ship Sunburn missiles. Can you discuss here with us our capability to defend against that threat?
Admiral JOHNSON. I prefer to do that in another forum or for the record, sir.
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Mr. SAXTON. That would be fine. Maybe we can do that privately on that.
Final question, I noted from—my staff put together a little briefing on the budget. One of the line items was or is something in the neighborhood of $830 million for chem-bio response. I am curious to know how each of you view that program, how it is organized, and how effective you expect that might be. Whoever wants to take a first crack at that would be great.
General SHINSEKI. I would just say I am not familiar with the total figure, how to break that up in an answer for you, Mr. Saxton, $830 million. But chem-bio is part of our day-to-day issues inside the ground component in the Army. The equipment that makes us—gives us the capability to deal and operate in a contaminated environment is very much part of our training as well as our crisis response and warfighting responsibilities. It is very much a part of that.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would just, without repeating, associate myself with that. The specifics within the $830 million, I would have to provide you for the record.
General RYAN. The same.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
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General JONES. Sir, the only thing I was going to say is, chem-bio—we have a chem-bio response force that is up and operating. It is a national asset, and it is going to be moving to the vicinity of the capital region. Certainly, part of that money would be to sustain not only the unit but also the technological development associated with making sure that unit can respond nationally to a crisis.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, first let me say I value very much the close personal and very positive working relationship I have with each of you. I do feel that since this is Admiral Johnson's last posture hearing, I should add a special comment to thank him for his good heart, his good head and for his leadership as the Chief of Naval Operations. We will miss you.
Each of you have responded to a sum of money representing an identified unmet need that would be executable in the 2001 budget year if you had those funds. I read into that an implication that in a more perfect world with more lead time there indeed are other needs that should and need to be met and could have been executed in 2001 if there had been any indication that you should be—should plan for it or been geared up to do it. Am I in any way correct in that surmise?
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And am I also correct in the surmise if these are identified, executable, unmet priority needs for 2001 that you must not have gotten in the ultimate processes through the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget and finally the decision of the White House all that you thought was necessary for your services for the budget year 2001?
These are things that I would be very interested in any observations that you have.
I also want to make one comment further about Vieques which we have heard mentioned so much today. I am very proud especially of Admiral Johnson and General Jones and the staunch way that you have stood up for—under intense political pressures—the needs of our country and of our national security interests in maintaining and I think so beautifully advocating how important that facility is to our national security. I hope that you will continue to do that, and I hope that your efforts will be met with a lot less demagoguery that has surrounded this issue from the beginning and which I think is truly shameful.
I guess that is about as much as I am going to have if you have any time for response. So, again, thanks to all of you.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would just comment, Mr. Bateman, to the unfunded, unmet needs. As was the case last year, which we all considered to be a good budget year, we turned a big corner last year. We maintained the growth this year, but, without question, it did not meet all of our needs. I don't think there is any mystery in that. And so we must continue to sustain the growth. That is why we hope what we put forward is useful. If funds become available, we can apply those funds to the things that count the most for us. I hope that we continue to build on that year by year.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Let me interrupt any further responses to say that the real reason we ask that is that we here on this committee are not going to be able to do very much to augment this budget because the first time—not the first but almost the first time the Administration has asked for an increase in defense expenditures, but we are not going to be able to increase this budget further unless you make it the point.
We can't do that. It is not politically doable or tenable or realistic that we can enhance this budget. But if you make the case and state the need, at least we have a fighting chance of doing so. That is why I ask: Does this represent really what has been requested by way of the budget all that is truly needed, in your judgment, and in what you submitted in the budget request? And, hopefully, if the answer is as I would expect, we can do something about it. We certainly owe it to you and to the people you lead and to the country to try.
General SHINSEKI. I would add to Admiral Johnson's comments that, yes, the unfinanced requirement list that the Army provided, clearly these are needs that we have stated as requirements. Your question about whether or not these were programmed or had they been issues that cropped up, I would answer and say a little of both.
When we have a tragic accident like the loss of an ARL aircraft on mission in Latin America, there is a requirement to replace it. We were not able to do it this year, but we do have it in the unfunded requirement list. If we are not able to meet that this year we will address that as we build a 2002 to 2007 Program Objective Memorandum (POM).
When we have Apache helicopters with parts failing that should not have failed at the point of use that they were at, there is some of that included in the readiness piece of the unfinanced requirement.
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There are other things that we have stated were requirements. In the case of the Army, as I made the presentation on transformation and why it was necessary, the discussions about the rightness of transforming the Army was also challenged with coming up with dollars that were needed to help finance it. In the presentation of our requirements, certain programs were supported, others were not. And so on the list at a very high priority were some of those requirements that we said were needed but, frankly, we were told could not be funded.
General RYAN. In our list we tried to look at what would be executable in the 2001 year. There are other programs that we could have added to that list, quite honestly. Had we known or received in 2000 the front-end tails of the long-lead items, we could have ramped up. Almost all of our programs are not running or being procured at the most efficient rates.
So our list includes many of the things that we know we could start a ramp but would require continued funding into the outyears. Things like low density or—low-density, high-demand flight crew training. We have training munitions where we are having to dip into our war reserve materiel (WRM) to use those munitions to train our forces with live munitions. Space ranges, increased capability for our bomber fleet. There is a whole host of things that we could not afford to do this year that we would like to do and would want to do. They are included in the list. We tried to be very conservative about what we put forward so that we knew we could execute if you provided the funds.
General JONES. I would just echo the comments made by my three colleagues and restate the point that I tried to make in testimony, Mr. Bateman, that I believe until we have a debate about what is the proper level of investment for the world superpower and what are the expectations of that superpower globally associated with leadership—not just warfighting, but presence and the like—I don't think that it will be sustained at three cents on the dollar. Everything else will flow from that, but I think we need to have that discussion.
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Thank you, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. [presiding.] I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
I would first like to reference some comments made by my colleague and good friend, Gene Taylor from Mississippi, relative to the $16 billion that you indicated was a shortfall to which needs to be added several billions of dollars for health care. I would just like to comment on one part of that.
I don't know how much it will cost us to keep our promise to our retirees, particularly those over 65, but I will tell you it is costing a whole lot more not keeping that promise in terms of morale, recruitment, retention. Yesterday, last year, five years ago, we should have kept that promise. Let's do it tomorrow. It is costing us a lot more not to keep that promise.
Now I would like to reference something that General Jones mentioned twice in his comments, just 20 seconds ago for the last time, the second time, and that is the amount of resources of our country that are now committed to our military.
I had the opportunity to go back to the Eisenhower years, to go back to what was happening then. I thought I remembered that, for the first time in our history, our Federal Government cost us $100 billion. I remember thinking that was a lot of money. My memory was a little off because it was a year or two after Eisenhower before we spent $100 billion. Today, we spend more than twice that on the interest of the debt each year.
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Under the Eisenhower Administration, 62 percent of his budget was defense which, General Jones, was 16 percent of Gross domestic product (GDP). You mentioned for the past number of years that the average has been eight percent. The 8 percent is only half of the 16 percent it was under Eisenhower. Then it was 15 percent—I am sorry—today we are spending 3 percent of GDP, and it is only 15 percent of our budget.
So we are now down somewhere between a fourth and a fifth of what we were spending then. There is no shortage of dollars obviously for our military in our country. The real deficit is in the ability to articulate to the American people the need so they will support that need. And they will support the need if adequately articulated.
You are doing all you can. We are doing all we can. Please pray for the right occupant of the White House next year so that the right thing will happen. We really need your support.
Now, I would like to ask a single question. I am glad that General Shinseki brought this up.
At yesterday's hearing, General Shelton confirmed his knowledge regarding the tragic loss of five members of our forces in Colombia in a mission there, an aerial reconnaissance mission. He knew of the tragedy but seemed unfamiliar with the status of the mission which is heavily dependent on the characteristics of the ARL aircraft which you mentioned was lost.
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By the way, they are already in short supply. The CINCs were asking for more than we have available, and now we have lost one from Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
The General stated the mission could continue as directed and the lost aerial could be replaced by similar aerial—other airlift platforms. I later discovered that there is no asset available with the appropriate mission-essential requirements that the ARL provided. As a result of that, we now do not have any ability there to take pictures from the air. We are getting other types of intelligence, but none—this is an asset that we cannot duplicate with these other platforms.
We have nearly a $1 billion—I guess maybe more than that—request, a supplemental request for Colombia. I find it astonishing that in that billion dollars or more than a billion dollars that we couldn't find $30 million to replace this asset that is irreplaceable. There is no other platform that we have that could do what it is doing, and we now do not have any photography available for intelligence in that area.
I would just like your comments on this problem, sir.
General SHINSEKI. Mr. Bartlett, I would agree with you. We have that, as I said, an unanticipated loss of this aircraft. We have it very high in our unfunded requirement statement.
Mr. BARTLETT. With a billion dollars in supplemental, why wasn't $30 million in there to replace this asset which was already in short supply and for which you have no fallback? You are not now getting the pictures that were provided for you. There is no other platform that gives you that capability.
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General SHINSEKI. I believe the supplemental is what will be provided to Colombia as opposed to my requirements. In other words, if we invest this aircraft it would stay with us. It would go back into the unit that is stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas, to replace that; and that is what I am trying to do.
Mr. BARTLETT. It is a high priority in the additional funds you are asking for?
General SHINSEKI. That is correct.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Andrews.
Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your patience today and for your service as well. We can't say enough how much it is appreciated.
General Jones, you made a comment a couple of minutes ago, which I picked up on, about the Marine Corps leveraging wherever possible off-the-shelf commercial acquisitions to make your dollars stretch further. I know that each of the branches is trying to do that. I would invite you to participate in an effort that I have initiated with Assistant Secretary Hamre, Mr. Money, and their fine staff to think about a way to institutionalize that practice by giving our program managers and other personnel a chance to take advantage of commercial research, leverage that commercial research but upgrade it so it suits the needs that you have. I would be happy, through my office and the committee, to be involved in that.
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The question that I have is about your preparations for infrastructure warfare for defending our critical infrastructure. The news accounts have been abuzz the last couple days with attacks about cyberhacking and cyberterrorism on various civilian systems.
I am aware of the fact that there are significant planning efforts and assessment efforts in each of the four branches to do an assessment of how well prepared we are in the military to defend our critical infrastructure against physical or cyber-oriented attack. What I would like to know is, for the record—later, you can supplement—I would like to know an update as to what progress each of the four branches is making in this area. What I would like to know today is whether you feel you need more resources from us in order to continue this effort.
Let me just say one thing before I listen to the answer. We are very fortunate that our first impulse in this society is to turn this problem over to civilian law enforcement authorities. We are blessed that that is the case. But the reality is that it is probable or certain that these kinds of attacks are going to come from outside the country. In fact, it is likely to be attacks that presently may be coming from outside the country. That takes us into a whole area of diplomacy and intelligence and military operation. That really goes to the question of defending our civilian infrastructure.
What I was interested in is what preparations are you making, what resources you need to defend the military infrastructure that you have responsibility for and what we could do to help supplement those efforts.
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General SHINSEKI. I would just very quickly point out that I think all of us are doing within our services a couple of things. One, our vulnerabilities are technical or they can also be training. One of our greatest responsibilities is training the users of our systems to be disciplined about turning on machines and going through the proper procedures to get in so that we don't open vulnerabilities unnecessarily. That is a huge requirement when you talk about the turnover of our force. In many ways that vulnerability is more significant, and it is a discipline as a force that we need to put in place.
The second piece is a technical piece where a dedicated adversary would look for loopholes or doorways in our system. That is constant even when we have got firewalls up. There is someone working to penetrate, and we understand that.
In the Army we have an activity called LIWA, Land Information Warfare Activity. I would be happy in another forum to invite you to go down and see the capabilities they have. Lots of work going on in this area, and I think that you would be satisfied that we are doing serious investment in this.
Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to take you up on that invitation.
Admiral.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would just comment, Mr. Andrews, that this is a serious area. A lot of this is unknown to many people. Our unfamiliarity with it itself breeds concern. But there is a lot going on.
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General Shinseki talked to his. We have, for instance, just one note of it. The fleet information warfare center down in Norfolk, Virginia, which we would like to show you as well, is fully invested in this and really doing good work in terms of intrusions and detections and all of that.
It is much bigger than that. You know that the unified command plan on the joint side, computer network defense, computer network attack which will come online in October of this year residing in space command, we are all invested in that together. This is an area that we are committed to, an area, as I said, that has many unknowns for us. But clearly as we go forward we have—.
Mr. ANDREWS. Are the resources there to do the job that you need to do?
Admiral JOHNSON. In general terms—I will give you each for the record. Right now, it is as much a matter of organization and education I think as it is resources, but there are resource implications. There is no question about that, and I would be happy to give you those for the record.
Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Admiral.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix.]
General RYAN. I agree with my wingman here. It is very much an ongoing battle that we are in. It is just a day-to-day fight to make sure that we protect ourselves from those who are attacking us and eventually have the capability to respond.
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The move to consolidate computer network defense for our services with a CINC allows us to pool some of these resources we have that are not—and ideas that are not service unique. Each of us has a warfare center that is working very hard on this, and I offer also to invite you down to ours down in San Antonio.
There is a bigger issue that goes along with this business, and that is the legal implications of how you defend yourself in what I would call an active defense. Just sitting there and trying to fend off attacks from the outside without the capacity or capability of going back and respond in kind is a huge disadvantage.
Mr. ANDREWS. Let me just quickly observe that our usual distinction between the civilian and military, and just as the national security, is based on physical space. That is not the arena in which we are dealing here. It has profound implications for our legal system.
General RYAN. As we found in this last war, what we fought over Serbia, there are huge implications of being able to use our responses. We are still working our way through that. We can talk about that in a classified forum.
General JONES. I associate myself completely with the remarks of my colleagues. The Marine Corps is also involved in a joint spirit. We definitely are at the forefront of just scratching the surface of this very real and ever-growing threat. This is the price you pay for the technological age that we have entered into. We need to know how to fight and defend ourselves within that context.
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Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for his very eloquent, articulate questions.
The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Johnson, I am going to ask you a question. This is known as the set-up, but it is indicative I think of the question that I want to get to at the end. All of you have been thoroughly propagandized by me and assailed. I think General Ryan is the only one that has escaped the full presentation so far on capital budgeting. But I want to utilize this question in that context, Admiral Johnson.
You folks were kind enough to provide me with the—from the joint staff an unclassified document on the memorandum of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. ''Subject: Unclassified Release in 1999, a Joint Chiefs Attack Submarine Study.'' You are probably familiar with that, Admiral. I won't go into all of the details of it. I am just going to refer to it in general.
In essence, the report talks about a future force of 68 submarines. And essentially—I am just extrapolating out of it—essentially, from my reading of it, it gets to actual programming of about 55.
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Now, I want to set aside for conversation's sake here the kind of CSIS fantasy routine. By the way, I think that CSIS presentation was about as useless and debilitating and diversionary a kind of thing as we could possibly get into. I don't need Flash Gordon coming in here at this stage. I don't think that anybody needs that kind of approach, that we can't deal with.
Let's just take the 68. Maybe that is the absolute number, maybe it could go short, but nevertheless the programming in my judgment, from my review, is 55.
Now, the commander of the submarine force in the Pacific has expressed serious concerns about force levels. We have discussed this ourselves. Several times in the last couple of years there has been no carrier presence in the Pacific having to do with the deployment necessities and all of the rest of it. No carrier battle group in the Pacific, the submarine in my judgment makes an ideal strike platform. But this goes to my prejudices that—Mr. Hunter is well aware of that, too. We have discussed this before, about how I feel about having to get submarines and a new generation of submarines underway.
Now, in the light, Admiral Johnson, of that Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) requirements report, this report I just mentioned, I presume that you are not comfortable with a force of only 55 submarines; and I would like you to comment on that.
Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Abercrombie, I think it is fair to say that I am never comfortable if I know that there are warfighting CINCs out there whose requirements are not being fully met. So then it comes to the matter of risk and how much all of us collectively and the CINCs individually are willing to take on. We could have a long discussion about that.
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Specific to the number 55, I should report that this budget preserves for us the option to stay at that number rather than complete the QDR glide path, if you will, down to 50 attack submarines. We are at this time looking at options to refuel a number more than that, other vessels or some combination thereof. But clearly in my view we must not—in light of that JCS study and the usage data that we all have seen for the last 3 years since those QDR decisions were taken, we must not let ourselves go down to 50 submarines in the hope that we would bring them back up to 55 or you picked the number above that sometime later.
Admiral JOHNSON. So those options, those equities are preserved in this budget. And I think that is the prudent action for this country.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I take it that that statement is not undermined in any way by the fact that it appears that the People's Republic of China is now expanding its submarine force in conjunction with submarine purchases from the former Soviet Union?
Admiral JOHNSON. I think that is one aspect of very legitimate concern that certainly I am sure that the CINC shares, and we all must share. But those submarines, as you well know, are fully multi-mission-capable assets that get tasked many years. Dealing with other submarines is one of them. But there are strike platforms, there are reconnaissance platforms. You understand that fully.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. I pose my question on the basis of the strike platform designation.
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Admiral JOHNSON. Yes.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So that being the case, and utilizing that as a case in point, gentlemen, my question is, would you consider, if not even for passage this time, but at least consider a capital budget bill that would separate an operating budget from a capital assets acquisition budget that would designate how that might take place, and that would, in my judgment, at least, give us an opportunity then to become more mission-directed rather than budget-directed in trying to fit a mission into it?
As I said, I had a chance to speak to all of you. What I am really interested in is would you reject that concept out of hand, perhaps taking—or would you be willing to consider as, the Joint Chiefs who have the responsibility now for making the ultimate recommendation to our committee and the appropriation committees under the Defense Secretary's direction—would you be willing to consider a financial—a change in the way we finance the defense of the United States that might incorporate a capital budgeting process in conjunction with an operating budget process that would enable us with the object of being able to fund equipment, maintenance, training, and deployment costs without having to put them into either opposition or competition with strike platform assets, et cetera?
I would start—I can start from the left with General Shinseki, if that is all right.
General SHINSEKI. I think I indicated in discussion with you, Mr. Abercrombie, that I would be interested in seeing the paper and be prepared to dialogue with you on that.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you.
Admiral JOHNSON. I think it is something that I certainly wouldn't shy from looking at. My gut reaction comment, Mr. Abercrombie, would be in a perfect world—I am not sure what that means, but in a more perfect world, it may have great appeal. But in the world in which we deal day to day, I am thinking about budget execution years, I wonder if—unless you had all of your requirements respectively financed in the operating and capital side, I am wondering if, as a practical matter, there would be unintended consequences if you had an absolute firewall between the two. That is what we have been dealing with.
We tried to build that brick wall between the two over the last QDR, and we are still not to the point where we can—where it is absolutely sound.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I understand that. I think one of the reasons for that parenthetically is we continue to cash finance.
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes; but I think is a fair thing to look at indeed.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You are willing to give it a look?
Admiral JOHNSON. I am willing to give it a look. I would prefer not to have it legislated, I would rather look at it first.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, sure. There are a lot of convincing aspects. Any time you try and make a major shift, particularly in the way you do things, it requires not only a lot of discussion and reflection, but it requires a lot of time to be able to think about it, because it does involve basic change.
Yes, General, please.
General RYAN. Mr. Abercrombie, I missed school that day, but I would sure listen.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am pretty relentless about it, so I am sure we will have an opportunity.
General RYAN. Yes, sir.
General JONES. Sir, I associate myself with my colleagues on that.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In conclusion, the reason that I would like to pursue this is the Secretary indicated, when he testified, that we have this big wave of expenditures coming, and how are we going to finance it. He indicated that the Pentagon and the Defense Department is the largest corporation in the world. They are trying to institute best business practices. We are trying to become as efficient as we can in dealing with these issues, many of which you have taken a lead on, I can say with certainty, and my only purpose in pushing this idea in the bill that will be forthcoming is to try and meet that challenge in a responsible and serious and sober-minded way.
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Thank you.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of quick questions. I will be brief. I was in a committee meeting over in the Judiciary Committee. In fact, I was going to submit my questions for the record and wait for a written response.
I got a little nervous after hearing Mr. Snyder, so I figured I better get back and ask my questions.
General Ryan, as all of us know, all of the services are having a difficult time providing housing, adequate housing, for our servicemen and women and their families. And that is true throughout the services, but I think it is especially pronounced in the Air Force.
As I understand it, the Air Force, there are 110,000 family units. There are 60,000 that have been deemed inadequate. And the military construction budget that this committee authorizes, as well as the appropriations process to the Air Force, doesn't fully address those family housing shortcomings.
General Ryan, my understanding is that the Air Force has been working with an innovative pilot program outside of the military construction budget to address the family housing problem. I was wondering if you could just enlighten the committee a little bit about this and whether or not this is something that potentially we could help further develop.
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General RYAN. First of all, your figures are correct. We have over 110,000, and about half of them really need to be completely razed and begun again.
We have looked at different ways of financing housing for the future. We have had some successes. We have had some problems with corporations who didn't want to follow through with the initiatives that we brought forward to them.
We have test cases in about 16 different locations planned. What we have to be very careful of in this business, from a military standpoint, is that our military family housing is a haven, a haven for our folks who—when the member goes on deployment, where security and safety and services for those families is so important to the well-being and well-mindedness of the member who is on deployment. We are very cautious about how we would privatize our housing, and so we have taken a direction that says that those places where we plan to do this need to have—be physically located so they are severable from the base.
That having been said, we have gone to a group of different corporations to look at what is the best way to finance it. Do we convey the land for them to then revitalize the housing as they take the land, and then we promise that the BAH, the basic allowance for housing that we give, would be transferred to them for our people to live in these locales, and that they would also assure that we provided that safe haven?
We have had some good successes, and we have had some failures. One of the problems with it right now is that our basic housing allowance is a variable allowance, and it has just been changed as we brought it on this year. And we have had some of our vendors out there who have decided that that was too volatile a price for them to count on the housing being built.
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We will continue to monitor this as we go into the future. I think it is an innovative way to try and revitalize our houses; but I am worried that—about the long-term commitment of some of those corporations.
Mr. MEEHAN. Sure. I am interested in this issue. So to the extent that you have pilot programs or instances where it really works, outside of the military construction budget, I would be interested in what we can do to kind of promote that.
General RYAN. Yes.
Mr. MEEHAN. Finally, I don't want to let this opportunity go by without asking General Jones again how we are going with Polartec. I know that you are familiar with the fact that—the success with the product. My understanding was the Marine Corps was going to put it on the unfunded priority list. I am just wondering where that is at this point in time.
General JONES. Sir, it is on the unfunded priority list for 2001, and I am very much hopeful to get some help to achieve the very important product that will help our Marines.
Mr. MEEHAN. Great. I look forward to working with you, obviously. I have had discussions with a number of Members and look forward to working with you on that.
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General JONES. Yes, sir.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman. And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us for so long.
Let me just ask you a couple of wrap-up questions here, because I think one of the most important things you have done is submit this list of unfunded requirements.
And I think perhaps the definition of the unfunded requirements is somewhat in play here, because we have talked about the enormous recapitalization requirements that we have over the long run, which are massive, and I disagree with my friend Mr. Abercrombie with respect to the CSIS study, because it did something very simple which evoked surprising responses, I thought, from the former Secretary Bill Perry, who said he thought the procurement bill didn't need to be an extra $88 billion per year. He thought that it should be between $70 billion and $80 billion per year.
And the CBO, which just put pencil to paper, looked at the assets and how soon they have to be replaced and came up with a procurement tab of $90 billion per year, this from a very conservative institution with respect to the amount of money that they feel needs to be spent on defense.
So they did—this idea of simply taking the $3.5 billion defense inventory, a piece of which each of you have, looking at the expected life, which is what the CBO did, and they did an optimistic case and a less optimistic case. So some pieces of equipment they put out there are having a life much longer than what we projected when we manufactured the particular platforms. They said how soon do we have to replace this?
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I remember the first category, which was track vehicles, tanks, artillery to maintain the population, most of which, General Shinseki, is in your shop at the U.S. Army. They had a requirement, a steady state requirement, annual requirement, of something like 623 platforms being replaced. And yet we have a historic average, annual average over the last 5 years, of, I think, putting in something like 24 platforms, so roughly one-tenth of what it would take to keep it at a steady state and keep your equipment at an average age.
In some categories—basically what we put in in the area of scout helicopters, for example, the Congressional and the Presidential budget has essentially been ceremonial, where we have requirements of something like 90 a year, and we put in 2 a year, just enough to show the flag basically in some categories.
Now, my question to you is this: Obviously, if you simply sat down with an accountant and gave him the task of saying, okay, here is everything we have got in the U.S. Marine Corps, here is everything we got in the U.S. Air Force, here is everything we got in the U.S. Navy, here is everything we got in the U.S. Army, here is the projected ages and here is what we have, tell us how much of these we are going to need to buy in a steady state to maintain the force.
That accountant would grind out an answer that would be obviously far above the cumulative $16 billion that you have given us for, quote, unfunded requirements. That leads to the conclusion that what you have done is for the most part speak to short-term shortages; that is, war-fighting, near-term shortages that will help get your readiness levels up, but don't necessarily address the long-term requirements of recapitalization.
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General Jones, you departed from that a little bit because you have got at least two V–22s in there. On the other hand, that is not exactly the end of the world. It looks like almost a ceremonial effort to get a little recapitalization in your unfunded requirements list.
So my first question to you is, have you looked at basically what you have and what it is going to take, either on a replacement basis where you have a new system coming in like the V–22 to replace the old choppers, or the AAAV to replace the old assault craft, or, General Shinseki, your new Comanche to replace your older helicopters? Have you looked at what you have in terms of inventory and when you need to replace it to maintain a modicum of war-fighting capability in that category and figured out what it is going to cost you in steady state, and have you communicated that to anybody?
General SHINSEKI. I think I indicated earlier the list I provided totaled about $5.4 billion, and I further described what was in it was about a billion in near-term readiness, and about $4 billion for transformation. And recall that I described transformation as recapitalization, acquisition of some interim equipment that would give us a fill for capabilities we don't have today. And this talks about those interim brigade combat teams that we could deploy quickly.
Mr. HUNTER. That is recapitalization, but it is what you would call interim recapitalization?
General SHINSEKI. It is recapitalizing the force that we have today to keep it operational as we are looking at designing the subjective force.
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And the third piece of transformation was investments in S&T, science and technology, that would give us the kinds of answers that are going to help us design that future force. We have put about—in S&T about half of my S&T each year for the next five years in order to drive the S&T community, which, as I have said publicly, I think in this country are—the research and development community is the best in the world. We are trying to stimulate them to come back with answers to help us design that objective force.
We had hoped to have matching funds from other agencies like Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), matching dollar for dollar, year for year. We didn't quite get there, but we are hopeful that we will get more support.
But we have put $500 million a year for the next 5 years into the S&T effort, that is S&T. There is a piece there that talks about acquiring the interim equipment that we are about to make a decision on this June when we have the competitive runoff, and that will buy five to eight brigade sets to give us this interim capability.
At the same time, the third piece in transformation is recapitalization of our current legacy force to keep it functional, ready, war-fighting fit as we are doing the first two pieces here.
Mr. HUNTER. If you go to the recapitalization, though, if the green eyeshade guy in CBO broke out the systems that are in the Army of this $90 billion annual procurement budget that he says is necessary just to keep the current force, including your forces, basically with a semimodern equipment base, he has got a much higher figure than you have got.
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I mean, you have got $1 billion. I suspect if you break out what CBO gave us between the services, one-third of it may be Army equipment. If that is true of that $90 billion procurement figure, annual procurement figure, that this guy who is not partisan, not trying to make a point, but simply a green eyeshade guy saying, hey, here is a piece of equipment, it has got a 30-year life, some point you have got to replace this old taxicab, or you are going to have a bunch of real old taxicabs in here, and if you replace it, here is what it will probably cost you. His figures are much higher than your $1 billion.
What it leads me to believe is—I don't know, but it appears that you haven't sat down with all of your systems, including certainly your choppers, and looked at what it is going to take you, no matter how your transformation comes out, if you can go lighter, go faster, go stealthier, which I think we are all for, you are still going to have to replace them. I think it would be useful for us if you would figure that out.
But have you done that analysis, just replacing what you have got, if you had to do that?
General SHINSEKI. A good point on the aviation pieces, the transformation description here is primarily ground focus, because that is where our greatest challenge is in terms of deployment. There is an aircraft, aviation piece to this that is also subject to discussion. It is not included in these numbers.
I am in the process of looking at modernizing the modernization plan, challenging some of the assumptions in there that gets to exactly the point you are talking about. That is yet to be delivered. And I saw the first run on that here about a week ago. And they have got more work to do, but there is a follow-on discussion here on aviation modernization.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. If you could take a look at your total inventory of equipment and just where we have to go as a Nation down the line to replace this stuff over the next 10 to 20 years, and what steady state that is going to require us, if you assume that you are going to have to use a lot of the Legacy systems, that we are not going to have radical breakthroughs hoping that we have them. I mean, I would be interested in seeing, I think all of us would be, in what that number is.
General SHINSEKI. Okay. That can be done.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Admiral Johnson, have you done this analysis in terms of what we need?
Admiral JOHNSON. My answer would be yes. I mean, really, the—it forms the basis for the recapitalization plan we have now. I mean, as you well know, our—the stuff we buy lasts a long time. And as I mentioned earlier, the ships alone, we know we are not at the steady state we need to recapitalize the force we have got together, and ditto on the airplanes.
We are coming out of a horrendous bathtub in airplane numbers. At 128 today now, we have got to get above 150 and hold that just to recapitalize what we have got right now.
I mean, I think we have got that. It formed the basis for the unfunded lists that I generated at about, as I said, $5.7 billion in 2001 and $32 billion across the future years defense plan (FYDP).
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. But you have done—you have done an overall long-term recapitalization requirements analysis?
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir, we have. And, in fact, we are in the process right now of submitting to the Congress, for instance, a 30-year shipbuilding plan.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Your high-demand, low-density assets that you speak of, and, I think, General Ryan, you speak of also, and I haven't seen your unfunded requirements list, but are they—do you have some of those in the unfunded requirements list?
Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, we do, indeed. For instance, we have requested in this 2001 list to pull—you and I talked earlier, I think, about EP–3s, to pull an EP–3 from 2003 to 2001. That is just one example.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
Admiral JOHNSON. We got a lot of help, by the way, and I thank the Congress and everybody for the help we got on the supplementals to augment the EA–6B situation. It allows us to form another squadron that really helps us upgrade in those precious national assets.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. General Ryan.
General RYAN. We have, within our planning system, road maps for our different mission areas that tell us what our recapitalization requirements are as we go out into the future. We have not costed those out beyond the FYDP. And it is really in some cases beyond the FYDP where that becomes a driving issue for us as we get into our large aircraft recapitalization; that is, the next tanker.
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We have the KC–135 that has been around for 35 years. It will go on for about probably 20. But in this next decade, we are going to have to step up to a tanker modernization program. Our Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets similar. We have to look at the length of time we can keep these assets flying, the U–2, the rivet joints, all of our ISR assets that contribute to the capability of all of our forces to collect and process intelligence data.
So we have road maps for them, but not beyond the FYDP have we really costed them out. I think that is work that needs to be done.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. You don't have them. Basically those systems aren't in the FYDP, are they?
General RYAN. No, they are outside the FYDP.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
General RYAN. Quite honestly, even internal to the FYDP, a decision sometime on whether we replace the C–5 or upgrade the C–5, try and bring its mission capability rate up to something that is useful, is a decision that we are going to have to make within this FYDP.
Mr. HUNTER. See, I think it will be useful for us, Jim Schlesinger made this presentation here the other day, as I said Secretary Perry followed him with a number that was surprisingly high for procurement. Secretary Perry's number was higher than your cumulative total just for procurement, and those are some pretty thoughtful gentlemen.
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They have looked at the huge inventory of defense articles, and they have looked at the ages. They have projected that you have got to replace these old taxicabs at someplace. And what is somewhat surprising to me is that your numbers are actually quite a bit lower than theirs are. I understand, General Ryan, that is because some of the big ticket items aren't in your FYDP. But, you know, the day you bring those things in, we are going to get sticker shock, right. All of a sudden you are going to walk in one day and say, we got five years left on these assets like tankers and bombers, we are going to have to go through all kinds of contortions trying to fit them into a budget.
I think these warning analyses that have come to us have told us if you are going to start replacing the stuff, you better start now. You are going to have a monster bow wave.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, would you kindly yield for a brief moment?
Mr. HUNTER. Sure.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, so I am clear with you on the remarks that I made previously and the question that I asked, the reason I said that this gets into fantasy numbers is not to argue for a moment about whether the costs of the various platforms, the cost of recapitalization, the time-sensitive nature of the capitalization and/or the unfunded needs, whether any of that—we can talk about that at the proper time. I said the fantasy is if we think we can continue to finance, and I think you are making my case for me right now, by the same method that we have financed it up to this time. If we continue to think that we can cash finance all of this and at the same time meet equipment, maintenance, training and deployment costs, I think that we are—I don't want to say kidding ourselves, but I think we are missing both the opportunity and the obligation to think about how we finance all of that, when we make the conclusion as to what is to be done.
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Just take the tanker situation that General Ryan mentioned just now. My expectation is, because we have been going for a long time with assets that have had a life span of 25, 30 and 35 years, that when we go to the next generation, which really means not so much recapitalization but modernization of what we are talking about, we are going to be very hard-pressed to find the cash dollars to meet that obligation, if, in fact, we decide that that is what we have to do.
Precisely because those assets have a life span of 20, 25, 30 and 35 years, that is why we need to think about a capital budget that could accommodate those kinds of numbers in those kinds of years.
Thank you.
Mr. HUNTER. Well, let me just say to my old buddy that this Member is going to be looking very favorably on any type of creative system or alternative financing system that gets these keels laid and gets these systems in production. We are going to have to have them.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I look forward to us being the new tandem.
Mr. HUNTER. You are looking better all the time.
General Jones.
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General JONES. Sir, the Marine Corps, as you know, is tied very closely to the Navy for our funding, particularly our what we call blue in support of green programs.
Let me address my comments to our ground equipment, if I can break that out a little bit. Our unfunded priority list did, in fact, extend the five years. Perhaps that wasn't long enough, but that is what we submitted, and our total there is about $6.5 billion, just for the Marine Corps.
We took a procurement recess, if you will, from 1993 to 1999, which we deferred $3.2 billion of modernization for the Marine Corps. Our steady state requirement is $1.2 billion annually, and what is needed to modernize is $1.8 billion. And we do not achieve currently within the—even the five-year plan.
We can certainly look at—since most of our major end items, particularly aircraft, are blue dollars, working with the CNO and the Navy to get those longer-year projected costs that you mentioned, but the unfunded priority list that we submitted really has an awful lot in it that would help us a great deal in terms of recapitalizing ourselves, particularly on the ground side of the house.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So you did include a recapitalization analysis in this?
General JONES. Yes, sir. I would say it is caveated by the fact that we paid attention to what is executable per year, so $1.4 billion this year and $1.3 in every succeeding year in the FYDP, just for the Marine Corps.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Incidentally, for Mr. Kasich's question, if you could do something for him here, because he was concerned that the O&M costs per uniform personnel is going up, it occurred to me that part of that is a fact that when you have 1,000 people in a unit at a base where you used to have 2,000, you have got the same costs of keeping the perimeter secure and all the other things, and we have downsized the forces in some cases almost in half.
But I think your comments with respect to the inordinate amount of time that it is taking us to maintain equipment now is right on point. If you could maybe take four or five of your systems, your systems, with an example of how many manhours it has now taken to maintain them, you may start with the CH–46 and go from there as opposed to a new system, I think that would be pretty instructive for us.
If you could do that, General, maybe General Ryan, maybe Admiral Johnson, maybe General Shinseki, if you have got several, if you could give us a couple of examples of your hanger queens, if you will, that really cost money. I am told when you cannibalize systems, it doubles your labor costs because now you have got to have a mechanic go extract it from the system that is being cannibalized and then take it over and then insert it, rather than simply taking something off the shelf and put it in.
Admiral JOHNSON. Do twice the maintenance, sure.
Mr. HUNTER. I would like to have a couple; if you could give us each a couple of examples of that, that is going to be, I think, important to us.
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The Ranking Member, the distinguished gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will close on this, if I may. Your testimony today, I assume, is in a pure, clean world. In the last 10 years, our forces have been deployed abroad on more than 60 occasions. I listed in my opening remarks seven major deployments, each of which cost in the billions of dollars. Some of them have been covered by supplementals, not all of them.
Have you taken into account in your testimony, your requests, your unfunded requirements and all of the other dollar figures you have given us, have you taken into account the possibility over the next 20 years, 10 years, the deployments that in all likelihood we will have?
Mr. JOHNSON. As a rotational force, Mr. Skelton, my answer to that would be yes. I hearken back to General Jones' comments earlier about we are funded to operate, and we plan accordingly.
General RYAN. As both a rotation force and a reaction force, the answer is yes and no. We have planned for our steady state AF operational capability, but if we go into a major theater war or above two AF construct, then we have not funded for that.
General SHINSEKI. I would comment yes to the degree that we can see clearly 10 years down the road. The Navy describes a model in which they have deployments generally about 6 months around which they organize a rotational concept.
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We don't—in a formal way, the Army does not have that kind of a rotational concept. Our requirements, war-fighting requirements, put us in just a different stance. But in reality, in the way that we are currently being asked to deploy forces, we have three aircraft carriers. They are called the USS Korea, the USS Bosnia and the USS Kosovo.
And it is meeting those rotational requirements with motivated, hard-charging youngsters that see that as important that drives the rest of our assignment policies in the Army. And this is part of the reason we are stretched.
So to the degree that we are unable to establish a formal rotational program like my good friends in the maritime service are able to do, we don't have that as a formal way of costing. But in reality, we live with this very busy requirement now, and I can't tell you when the next carrier requirement is going to come due for the Army.
General JONES. Mr. Skelton, I think the answer is yes, as expressed by the CNO for the Marine Corps, although I do worry about the geography 10 to 20 years out in terms of what our basing options might be in the future. And I think we have had a recent discussion with Mr. Abercrombie to suggest that he also worries about where we will be 10 years from now; what will be our access; what is the value of our forward-based forces in terms of shaping the environment; responding to crises.
I come back to the point that I think our forces, all of our forces, contribute much more to the environment and the geopolitical stability of the world that allows the economies to flourish and the diplomatic dialogue to succeed and to fulfill the expectations of our own national commitment to leadership, and I am not sure that we have a full understanding of the value of that kind of presence. I hope that the future environment 10 to 20 years out will allow for that continued expression, because I think it is vital to who we are and what we do as a Nation.
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Mr. SKELTON. I thank the gentleman. Thank you so much for your testimony today.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentlemen. And this has been a pretty good marathon here. We really appreciate your presence here at the hearing.
Let me just ask one other question that came to mind. General Ryan, you had a—you offered a statistic earlier. You basically fought an MRC in the Kosovo air campaign. You had some very telling comments, I think, with respect to our depth of sustainability when you talked about what it did to the nondeployed units in terms of readiness capability.
As I recall, one of your statistics was that near-term readiness in stateside units dropped something like 50 percent. Why did that come about?
General RYAN. The 50 percent drop that we experienced in stateside units was over a period from 1996 until now. It was not just during that time frame. We have dropped about 25 percent overall, but 10 percent occurred in 1999. And I think that was a combination of four factors: One, underfunding the spares for those years starting in 1996, 1997, not recovering until 1998, 1999 and 2000; second, a loss of our midlevel NCOs, who are the people who hold this—the fabric of this operation together. They are the ones that really have the capability to fix the airplanes, and we have been losing them over the last couple of years. So that also increased the drawdown.
Mr. HUNTER. You are getting that fixed.
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General RYAN. We are trying to get that fixed with what you all supplied us with, some very good tools for retention; better pay, retirement, et cetera. We are also trying to access more folks in through our—through our recruitment.
The other factors that influenced us was a very, very high OPTEMPO during 1999 that started with the war—essentially a war in Southwest Asia that took a lot of our assets. Then we turned the Air Force over to almost 40 percent of it deployed for Kosovo. All of those added to a real decline in our capability, and to feed the forces we took from the forces stateside, and that is why you saw that large dip stateside.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. I guess our question to you is is the oversight body—you know, how do we fix this thing? We wish we could get an answer from you to the effect that it is going to cost you so much. This is what we need, and we could put it in our budget, and we could be assured of a turnaround.
But my understanding from talking to you outside the hearing and in this hearing is you think you are turning this around, but you are not sure.
General RYAN. I am not sure. I do not have the data to say this has started to turn around yet.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. The last question I would have for all of you is I have cited this approximately 10 percent drop in mission capability for aircraft that has taken place over the last 7 years, from 1992 to 1999. Have any of you experienced an uptick in aircraft mission capability in the last year or so?
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General JONES. Sir, with regard to the Marine Corps, we have had an uptick in our Harrier fleet thanks to the assistance of the United States Navy. We have had a serious problem with too many bare firewalls and missing parts. And we have—by April of this year, we will be back to mission-capable status for most of our aircraft. So that is a good news story.
Admiral JOHNSON. I would just offer, not forgetting my earlier comments about parts and supplies and timelines and all, but one of the things that has been good news for us is the business of backlogs of airframes and engines and the metrics by which we ascribe ourselves whereby deploying squadrons are our full primary aircraft activity, and the nondeployers are at 90 percent.
We have the force at that level right now, which—I mean, for all the other stuff, that is good news, and that is one sign that maybe we are starting to take some traction here.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Just one last thing I would leave with you is a provision that we put in the defense bill a number of years ago that none of us have used that I think could be a real tool, and that was simply this: With all the closed assets and closing assets of bases across the country, you have enormous dollars represented in terms of land value and bases that are closing and facilities that are on that property; in some cases, the housing that is there—we put a provision in the MILCON bill that became law that said that the DOD and the services could trade straight across with no dollars needed for existing closing assets. So let us say Fort Irwin or Fort Ord is closing up on the northern California coast, and you could trade that real estate to a development company, General Shinseki, in return for them building single-family housing at one of your designated locations, perhaps Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where they desperately need it, without you having to pay any money.
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We put that thing in. And it has a couple of conditions on it. The local use boys got in and got their provisions that—you know, the local—the base reuse guys had to agree to it. But I think if you folks wanted to use this, I think this committee and the Congress would be very cooperative with you in trying to make sure it was usable.
What that means you could do is go out and literally—and there is a ton of development companies with lots of money in the bank right now across this country. You could get some requests for proposals (RFPs), and you could have people going in and putting in 100, 200, 300 units of single-family enlisted housing without having to have outlays. I mean, that could be a windfall for you. Otherwise these reuse commissions are going to go off and transfer this stuff out in dribs and drabs to the various constituencies that come in and want to get this former—this former military land.
But you have a right to have that accrue to your benefit, and to my knowledge, nobody has even explored that. I know you will have to get through a couple of hurdles. I think we would be inclined to help. And I think in this time of tough budgets, the Administration would be inclined to help that.
So could you gentlemen look at that and see if we can't do something with it?
Well, thank you very much for your endurance. I think you guys are at least in good physical shape because you have been able to stay here for this entire day. The committee greatly appreciates your service.
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And, Admiral Johnson, thank you so much for your service to the country. I wish you could be with us for a number more of posture hearings. You have been a great asset to our country. We deeply appreciate you.
Admiral JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUNTER. To all of you, we look forward to working with you, and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
February 10, 2000
[This information is pending.]