SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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88–956
2004
[H.A.S.C. No. 108–9]
UNITED STATES GLOBAL DEFENSE POSTURE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD
NOVEMBER 5, 2003
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Eighth Congress
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
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CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD P. ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
KEN CALVERT, California
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
ED SCHROCK, Virginia
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
JEFF MILLER, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire
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ROB BISHOP, Utah
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
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JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
TIM RYAN, Ohio
Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
James M. Lariviere, Professional Staff Member
Justin Bernier, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2003
HEARING:
Wednesday, November 5, 2003, Sustaining Global Commitments: Implications for U.S. Forces
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APPENDIX:
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2003
SUSTAINING GLOBAL COMMITMENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FORCES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
Chu, Hon. David, Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense
Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, Congressional Budget Office, Accompanied by Mike Gilmore, Assistant Director for National Security, Congressional Budget Office; and Lt. Gen. Theodore G. Stroup, Jr., U.S. Army Retired, Vice President for Education, Association of the United States Army
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Pace, Gen. Peter, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Chu, Hon. David
Holtz-Eakin, Douglas
Hunter, Hon. Duncan
Skelton, Hon. Ike
Stroup, Lt. Gen. Theodore
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. Barlett
Mr. Calvert
Mr. Cooper
Mr. Langevin
SUSTAINING GLOBAL COMMITMENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FORCES
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House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, November 5, 2003.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joel Hefley presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOEL HEFLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO
Mr. HEFLEY. The committee will come to order.
The United States has over 100,000 troops in Iraq engaged in reconstruction and stability operations against a terrorist enemy. U.S. forces are also fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and are deployed in Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to support the Global War on Terror.
We are conducting peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Sinai, and additional troops are deployed in Europe, Japan and South Korea to honor security guarantees we made during the Cold War.
Arguably, today's military is deployed on a scale we haven't seen since the Second World War.
Unfortunately, we are engaged in all of these activities with a military that is smaller than that of 1990. The Army has fallen from 18 to 10 Active divisions. The Air Force has dropped from 24 Active and 11 Reserve fighter wings to 13 Active and 9 Reserve wings. The Navy has shrunk from roughly 546 ships to under 300.
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That creates problems. Active duty units must deploy more frequently than desired, leaving less time for training and increasing wear and tear on their people and equipment. Reserve units are called up more frequently, disrupting more lives than our Reserve system was intended to. Arguably, our ability to deal with contingencies may be at risk because our strategic reserve will shrink.
Finally, according to some, retention rates will suffer, raising the specter of a return to the hollow Army of the late 1970s.
We are not powerless in the face of these challenges. The administration is working on more flexible deployment cycles and basing arrangements while beginning to reconsider Active and Reserve force mix. We are examining ways of reducing the demands on our forces by encouraging allies to step up to the task of providing for their own security.
Finally, the administration has begun the process of reassessing the best means of meeting our security requirements. These are all appropriate and helpful steps, but they may not be adequate, and some of them may not work. Since September 11th, we have been a nation at war, yet we are fighting that war with a military largely sized for a post-Cold War peace.
It is a tribute to the quality of the people serving in uniform that we are defeating our enemies, but ultimately winning the war on terror will require a military sized to the task. We owe it to the men and women going in harm's way to make sure that there are enough of them to do the job. Ultimately, that may mean expanding the force structure. The committee has already weighed in supporting that option, and the administration will hear more from us on that score in the coming months.
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But we still need a better handle on this problem.
This hearing marks the third time the Armed Services Committee has reviewed these issues. The full committee held a hearing with Dr. Wolfowitz and General Pace back in June, while the Readiness Subcommittee looked at resetting the force in October. We are paying close attention because this is a vital subject; we cannot afford to get the answers wrong.
With that in mind, we have scheduled a two-panel hearing today. Our first set of witnesses includes Dr. David Chu, who is Under Secretary of Defense, and General Peter Pace of the U.S. Marine Corps, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gentlemen, thank you for appearing before the committee this morning. Later this afternoon we will hear from a panel of outside witnesses who may not be familiar with the administration's plans, but do have some insight into the strains that a high operational tempo places on the U.S. military.
Let me now recognize whoever is going to deliver—John, Mr. Spratt—Mr. Skelton's remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SPRATT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
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Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and let me thank you and Chairman Hunter for calling this hearing, because the topic is extremely relevant. And also to all our witnesses who are here today, I would like to say thank you for participating and to welcome you to the hearing.
Mr. Chairman, the hearing today is not about Iraq. Let me back up and say, I am acting as Ike's surrogate because Mr. Skelton is at Arlington Cemetery for the burial of a constituent who was killed in Iraq; and I am reading, with a few editorial comments of my own, the statement that Ike Skelton would make if he were here.
Mr. Chairman, the hearing today is not about Iraq, but it occurs against that backdrop. In terms of America's troops killed and injured, this week has been extremely costly, one of the costliest weeks in many months. The attacks of last week, the rising level of violence, the increasing sophistication all call attention to the continuing danger in which our troops find themselves in Iraq and the long-term nature of the commitment we have made.
Our forces were stretched thin before Iraq, and the engagement there has only exacerbated that trend. The administration has come forward with a plan for force rotation in Iraq that relies upon several assumptions' fix. First, it assumes one-year deployments of more U.S. troops, Active, Reserve and Guard. Second, it assumes the influx of more multinational forces to relieve some of the pressure on American forces, at least during 2004. And third, it assumes the rapid training of Iraqi security forces of all kinds and the eventual turnover of many security missions to these Iraqi forces.
It is unclear whether the last two of these three assumptions will come to pass. We continue to train Iraqi police and army forces, but it is unclear what missions they will be able to take on and handle capably and just when.
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Other nations have not committed forces in substantial numbers, unfortunately, and some that have, such as Turkey, have met with difficulties that make their deployment at this point doubtful. All of this raises serious questions as to how the United States can sustain our many global commitments next year and beyond.
Iraq is just one of the places where American forces are deployed. American troops remain throughout Europe and Asia in defense of our long-standing alliances. They are dispatched throughout the world from Afghanistan to the Philippines to Georgia and elsewhere in our Global War on Terrorism. And they are, at peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and in many places, training other nations' forces. We have to look at our commitments carefully, but we also have to recognize that we have global interests, and global interests mean global commitments.
Many of our forces are worn out already, including, in particular, our Guard and Reserve. Some specialties are being deployed almost constantly, and both the troops and their families are feeling the difficulties that this brings. We worry that we will soon see the effects in recruitment and retention if we do not soon find some way to ease the burden on these troops.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses today and their views on what we can do to improve the situation. In my view, however, one part of the solution—I am speaking here for Ike Skelton—one part of the solution must be an increase in Active duty end strength. This committee heard testimony back to 1995 about the undermanning of the Army, and since that time we have only added missions and exacerbated the problem.
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Congress, acting through this committee, has taken modest action to increase end strength, but I believe much more needs to be done. This is one piece, just one piece, but it is a crucial one in the overall plan to ensure that the United States can meet its global force commitments over the long-term.
Mr. Chairman, that ends the statement of Mr. Skelton, in which I concur heartily. Thank you very much for the opportunity to make it.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Spratt. The entirety of our witnesses' statements will be put into the record.
And Dr. Chu, we will turn it over to you.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVID S.C. CHU, UNDER SECRETARY FOR PERSONNEL AND READINESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Dr. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Spratt. General Pace and I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning about how the United States is using its military forces in the Global War on Terrorism.
At the outset, let me emphasize I think—as members of this committee, I know, agree—the Nation can indeed be proud of the service of its citizens in military uniform today, the service especially of its young people. They can be proud of the support that their families are giving them and that their communities are providing; and in the case of the Reserve Components, the superb support coming from their employers.
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The foundation, of course, of our military today is the all-volunteer concept that the Nation adopted just 30 years ago this summer. Indeed, we held a conference to review the lessons learned from that 30-year history, at which Secretary Laird, who testified before this committee in support of the voluntary force concept, recounted how it came to pass and how he had made the case to the Congress for this significant, indeed transformational, change in how the Nation structures its Armed Forces. And I would argue that the success of the volunteer force over the last three decades is very much a tribute to the partnership between the legislative and executive branches of the American Government.
That force, as we all know, has done extraordinary things in the last two years. If I could at least have the first of these charts—there should be at each of your places a copy of these charts, because they are a little hard to read at this distance—what this chart portrays is the deployments of our uniformed military through the area of operations, or AOR, of the Central Command, or CENTCOM, since September 11th, 2001, including both the Active forces, which are in the blue color on the chart, and the Reserve Component forces, which are in red. As you can see, right after September 11th with the deployments in support of operations in Afghanistan, the force levels in the area of operations roughly doubled. And, of course, then again earlier this year, these force levels built up to over 350,000 troops with preparations for action in Iraq.
I should emphasize, these force numbers have come down significantly—over 100,000—since the peak was reached in early May, and those have affected both the Active and Reserve Components.
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The second point I would make is that the Reserve Components, as I think you all appreciate, are an integral part of the success of this total force. If I could have the next chart, please, there was a buildup in these Reserve forces, again right after September 11th, 2001, to a peak of just under 80,000. As those operations ended, we brought individuals off Active duty. There was a new buildup of those forces to a peak of just under 225,000 in early May of this year with operations in Iraq, and again, the Reserve Component total has come down since that peak by about 60,000 to the present day.
I should emphasize that as we change out forces in Iraq over the next six months or so, you will see a temporary increase in Reserve Component mobilizations, because those being prepared for deployment will be brought to Active duty for training in other actions, while those already on Active duty are continuing in their service. But then again, you will see a decline once that period has passed.
We have had a series of challenges in terms of the management of the Reserves. In some areas we have done well; in other areas we acknowledge we need to do better. One issue that is raised is adequacy of notice to our Reserve personnel. We seek to give at least 30 days' notice. We acknowledge we have not met that standard in many cases, and we need to do better; and I think in the next round of Reserve mobilizations, we indeed will do much better.
A second issue has been raised, and that is, we have called on the same people repeatedly. In that regard, I think the actual record is quite good. If you look at the metric the Secretary employed in his memorandum of July 9th, which is to limit Reserve mobilizations to no more than one year in every seven, since 1996—and the mobilizations that have occurred over that period of time on an involuntary basis—only three percent of the personnel in the Reserves today have been called up more than once on an involuntary basis for some combination of those earlier mobilizations and the present operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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There are certain individuals that will be called more than once for the current operations, and that number is about five percent of the total. That figure does include people who volunteer for one or both of the current operations.
The third challenge we face is the issue raised in the opening comments of both Mr. Hefley and Mr. Spratt about the balance in our force—go to the next chart, please—and that is to say, do we have the right set of units in our military establishment and the right set of skills?
As you can see from this chart, we have called up, roughly speaking, a third of our Reserve Component inventory in the mobilizations to date, but if you look across the broad functional areas into which that force is divided, as you can see from the chart, there is a significant variation in terms of how much of that force has been used. One of the issues on which the Department is focused is, should we rebalance both the individual skills and the unit structure of our Reserve and Active forces so that we are more even-handed in terms of the burdens we impose on our people?
This was an issue that indeed the Department was considering even before current operations. The issue was raised in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that the Congress has mandated by statute, and indeed, we published in December of last year the formal results of that review entitled Reserve Component Contributions to National Defense, and I know many of you are familiar with this document.
The fourth issue that we have—the fourth challenge that we have to meet is how we set and meet the expectations of our Reserve personnel regarding what term of service they will have and how long they will specifically serve in a forward theater. And I should acknowledge that we did change those expectations this summer for very important military reasons.
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In the beginning of these operations, post-September 11, 2001, we typically set the expectation for Active service at one year. In the course of this summer, as the Department listened to the requests from General Abizaid, he emphasized the need for continuity of the forces in Iraq, and a decision was reached that units serving in Iraq would serve on the ground for one year. That is a change for many Reserve personnel from the expectations set at the point of mobilization, because, of course, it automatically implies that the total Active federal service would be greater than one year. We are trying to limit the degree to which it is greater to one year, and we will try to limit the degree to which it is greater than one year in the period going forward; but it is a change in the expectations of our personnel.
Let me say just a word, if I might, about the results of the application of this force over the course of the last two years. I think we would all agree that the performance of our units and our people has indeed been magnificent, and one of the interesting aspects is that their self-report on the degree to which they felt well prepared, both as individuals and as units for what they are called on to do, is indeed quite good.
Their willingness to join and to stay with us, of course, is one of those bottom-line indicators that everyone will watch attentively and properly right now and in the months and years ahead.
I am happy to report that our recruiting results and retention results have held up nicely, despite the stress level force as a whole. Indeed, as we survey our military personnel, which we do about once every four months, both Active and Reserve, they typically report a higher level of satisfaction with military life today than they did just three or four years ago.
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Intentions to stay remain strong, and we want to acknowledge that one of the reasons for the strength of those responses is the splendid support that this committee and its members have given to the set of programs that eventually undergird the willingness of Americans to assume the uniform of their country.
We did make in our transmission to you earlier this year a set of budgetary proposals for how we could strengthen those programs. It came as a transformation package. We are very pleased with the support this committee gave us to a number of those proposals, especially for a national security personnel system that would advantage our use of civilian personnel in the years ahead. We hope next year that this committee would be willing to entertain a renewed debate on those proposals that are not adopted in this year's authorization bill.
Mr. Chairman, it is a great privilege to appear this morning and to be able to answer the questions that I know you and your colleagues might have. But if I may, if I could first turn to General Pace and invite him to add any comments he wishes to offer.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Chu can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. HEFLEY. General Pace.
STATEMENT OF GEN. PETER PACE, USMC, VICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
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General PACE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to leave the time remaining to answer your questions, but I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to this committee for the strong bipartisan support that you have always given to the Armed Forces. We deeply appreciate it, and especially to thank those Members of the Congress who have been able to break away from very demanding duties and visit the troops overseas. It makes a difference to them when Members of Congress come.
And last, if I may say thank you to the families of all the men and women that are overseas, their sacrifice is very much appreciated. They—husbands and sons and daughters—are doing wonderful work and we appreciate it.
With that, sir, I would like to stop for questions.
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, General Pace.
Mr. Spratt.
Mr. SPRATT. Just getting straight to the basic issue, do you think that the extended employments of our Guard and Reserve Components, in particular, are going to create problems in recruitment and retention for you down the road and be a costly consequence of the situation we now find ourselves in?
Dr. CHU. We obviously are always concerned with this issue, sir. As I think members of this committee are aware, each year, quite regardless of current operations, about one-fifth to one-quarter of the Reserve Component force turns over. That is our normal attrition in that force.
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We are very pleased that all the Reserve Components met their end strength this last year, fiscal 2003, which is a combination of both recruiting and retention actions. There is obviously a trade-off to the retention; you don't have to recruit quite as many people. We will be paying more careful attention to ensuring there is the right package of incentives out there and the right treatment of our people so that indeed that good track record continues.
Mr. SPRATT. Have we learned a lesson in Iraq that it helps to have allies and not just token allies in some motley coalition, but allies who can pull an oar, NATO allies, for example, Norwegians, if not the French?
I have noticed conspicuously absent from a lot of the force preparation documents you have given us, like the QDR, any new role and mission for new alliances, new security arrangements and, in particular, new allies throughout the world to augment what is obviously even—I think your presentation is excellent, but nevertheless I think you would agree we are pushing the envelope, we are using our troops pretty close to their maximum utility. And Dr. Holtz-Eakin can lay that out even more graphically when he presents his study of just how many troops are available to be committed in the next rotation for Iraq.
Are we ready to acknowledge that the next time we do something like this, we need, at the front end, allies who will be with us, who will share the burdens, who will bear the costs as they did in 1990?
Dr. CHU. Well, as you know, sir, from historical record, the United States has always operated with allies; and I might particularly point out, from the very beginning in Afghanistan there were important ally contributions. I mentioned the Jordanian hospital, for example, in that theater. I think it is notable that NATO has taken a substantial role in terms of ongoing operations in Afghanistan. There are significant numbers of coalition forces operating in Iraq.
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Obviously, it is a different situation than we had in the Cold War, where we had a set-piece scenario against which we could plan in great detail in advance. So there is a need, and I think the Department and its allied partners, in my judgment at least, have shown great ingenuity in putting these pieces together on the short notice that current operations demand. We do not have the kind of long-term advance planning that the NATO framework gave us during the Cold War. That is the reality of the current world, and I think the track record here is indeed extraordinary.
General Pace may want to add something.
General PACE. I would simply add that you cannot have too many friends and allies on a battlefield.
Mr. SPRATT. Well, we are the world's only superpower. We keep saying that, but we find that the world is a large and unwieldy place, and even when you are the single remaining superpower, it can be a very lonely place when you don't have friends and allies to back you up, augment your efforts.
Let me ask you also about the administration's plans for transformation. Transformation assumed that we would have in place at the same time, more or less, three different forces, in a sense: a legacy force to handle problems in the here and now, a transitional force and eventually an objectional force. And that involves some overlaying and some layering and raises some questions of whether or not we had adequate resources to do all three of those things at the same time.
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Are we finding that the legacy force is going to be more demanding, more expensive than we anticipated, and therefore it is going to siphon off some costs that we otherwise would commit to transitional and transformation force?
Dr. CHU. I think, sir, you are speaking to an intellectual construct that the Army used in its initial phases of thinking about how it would change itself. What I would emphasize is that transition is ultimately about changing how we perform, how we do our job of fighting and winning the Nation's wars.
And let me give one example of the flexibility of thought that I think that requires to be successful in the end, and that is the Stryker brigades. The original Stryker brigade was viewed as sort of an interim force, as you described, sir. I think as the Army has worked with that concept, it has realized the opportunities to use that sort of unit more promptly and more aggressively than originally have been thought.
So I think the neat typology of legacy interim objective is not perhaps the right way to think about the force structure challenges in front of us. If we are successful in transformation, if we indeed have good ideas that merit application, they ought to be put in place promptly, even if it is not the perfect version of the ultimate idea we wish to pursue.
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much. I believe my time is up.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Saxton.
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Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. Let me just follow up on the conversation that you were having with Mr. Spratt and just—the subject of transformation is often talked about in conjunction with the subject of jointness, and it is often talked about, as you just did, Mr. Secretary, with the concept of flexibility.
It seems to me that we have seen some real success stories in the last couple of years. One good example that comes to my mind is the jointness that occurred and the flexibility that occurred in Afghanistan through the use of Special Forces teamed with air power. A very small number of special operators teamed up with the Mujaheedin to bring down a very big force in a very difficult situation, and it worked beautifully—flexibility, jointness and not necessarily the size of our force.
Another example of a difficult problem that we perhaps have not come to grips with as well is to be able to fight the type of warfare that we are currently engaged in in Iraq. Again, the flexibility that is necessary, not necessarily the size of the force.
And so, I guess these two examples lead me to wonder if, in fact, our traditional lay-down of forces, our traditional organization of forces, is the right organizational structure to carry out the joint type of warfare that is necessary, the flexibility that is necessary; and I am interested just to have you respond to that in terms of where we are going with transition.
General PACE. Sir, I think you have put your finger on a very important topic. As you know, Mr. Saxton, transformation is very much a continuum, and I think arguably that the intent of Goldwater-Nichols in how the Congress envisioned the Armed Forces of the United States would fight joint and combined on the battlefield was demonstrated in spades in Iraq with the exact examples that you used of services not being deconflicted, but being interoperable on the battlefield and, in fact, working off of each other's strengths and filling in each other's weaknesses so that you had, for example, Special Operations Forces in northern Iraq, where a Marine Expeditionary Unit came in off of the Mediterranean, married up with that force, and were underneath the command of the Special Operations commander.
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We had tanks moved around the battlefield by the Army in support of Special Operations. So all of the stovepipe organizations that cause us to be much less efficient than we might have otherwise been in the past have been included together very, very well.
What we have also is a whole body now of lessons learned from both Afghanistan and Iraq, because we have had members of the Armed Forces traveling with the units literally taking notes as they went along. And we have done a great deal of homework in the subsequent months critiquing ourselves on what pieces worked and why did they work and do we project that they will work in the future. What pieces didn't; why not? What do we need to change in the future?
That includes not only weapons systems, but more importantly, mind-set. And that goes to the kinds of command and control arrangement that you are talking about, sir, and that we are looking at. But speed, precision, joint and combined operations, flexibility, all are huge factors on that battlefield.
Mr. SAXTON. If I may just follow up, Mr. Chairman, I still today—and tell me if I am wrong—but still today it seems to me that the Army, in particular—and well, the Marine Corps, too, but the Army in particular—is configured much as it was when we developed the current configuration during the Cold War to face a much different kind of a fight; and I am wondering if there are some basic changes that are needed in organizational structure in order to carry out the objectives that we face in the future.
General PACE. Sir, I have talked to General Pete Schoomaker, who would tell you categorically, yes, there are changes to be made. He and his leaders are going about figuring out what those changes should be. He is looking at smaller global brigades as opposed to divisions and corps. He is taking the legacy units that just won this war, marrying up the interim units like the Stryker brigade and taking the lessons learned from both of those and projecting out to what is his objective force.
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So the Army clearly gets it. They understand the need to change the Active Component-Reserve Component mix, and they understand the need to change the size of their force and the footprint of their force so they can be flexible and employed in days instead of in weeks.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, if you will just permit me to ask one final question.
There is a lot of talk going on about whether or not we should increase end strength. Along with the discussion about increasing end strength, shouldn't we be talking about this subject in terms of how many people we really need to do the job, whether it is a brigade structure or a divisional structure, and couldn't this take a lot of heat off the operating tempo (OPTEMPO) of the individual soldiers and units?
General PACE. Sir, you are absolutely correct, and that is exactly what we are going about doing. Before we come to the Congress of the United States and ask you to spend more money on more people, which I personally would have no problem doing if I ever got that conviction, we need to make sure that we are properly using the assets that you have given us.
As one example, there are about 100,000 Active duty and Reserve positions that the Army has identified that—in cumulative numbers about 100,000—that some of those being Active forces that should be morphed over into the Reserves and some of the Reserves that should be moved over into the Active force, so that the mix of capabilities is better and more balanced between the Active and the Reserve. That is one way to do it.
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Number two, we have a lot of individuals who we believe are performing jobs that could, in fact, be done by civilians, freeing up a soldier, so to speak, to go back to another unit. There are the efficiencies of the battlefield. When one bomb will hit a target 95 percent of the time, the logistics that go along with fighting battles is substantially reduced. When you can move quickly around a battlefield and have the synergy of all the units working together, you can do things more quickly with much smaller, more lethal forces.
So it is not mass numbers, and it is not simply speed, but it is a combination of precision weapons, speed of movement, command and control that allow you to bring to the battlefield overmatching, overwhelming power in the place you want it without having to have hundreds and thousands of people standing by just in case you need to apply them someplace else.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, General.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, General Pace and Dr. Chu, for being here.
Dr. Chu, I have only a hunch based on what I saw after the previous Gulf War, and I am really pleased to see the high numbers of reenlistments while people are deployed. But based on a number of people that I knew were Guardsmen or Reservists after the previous Gulf War, those who did not reenlist while they were overseas get home, find a house that needs painting, a broken dishwasher, a car with the transmission leaking, and a spouse who is saying, unh-unh, not again. And I have a hunch we are going to see that again for those who do not reenlist during this deployment.
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I say that towards the point of—since we are asking so much more of our Guardsmen and Reservists, I am curious what you envision that we as a nation will do to further entice them to enlist and to stay in the force. I would start with retirement benefits.
As you know, the Reserve Officers Association has been pushing for a substantially reduced retirement age from the present system. I am not so sure that we could fully fulfill their requests, but I am asking if you would take a look at a system that rewards those people who stay beyond 20 years of service with a reduced retirement age, reward those Guardsmen and Reservists who have done either voluntary or involuntary extended Active duty with reduced retirement age.
And the third thing is, although I am pleased that apparently our conference report, if we ever get to see it, would do something about TRICARE for our Guardsmen and Reservists, the simple fact of the matter is, I don't think a Guardsmen or Reservist, particularly in this environment where they are likely to be called up, and in this environment where we know we have had problems getting people deployed because of—dental problems, in particular, held a number of people up from being deployed. I don't see why Guardsmen and Reservists ought to be digging into their pockets at all for health care under this environment, and I would very much welcome your thoughts on that.
I guess my third question would be, since as the—to quote the Secretary of Defense, we are in for a ''long slog,'' I think we need to be looking past this March's replacements and start talking about a year from March. What are you doing for a year from March to tell those Guard and Reserve units that you anticipate we are going to have to call up; what kind of warning are you giving them? Because one of the things we learned from the Bosnia experience is that the more time we could give those units to get their businesses in order, to get their family affairs in order, it certainly made their deployment a lot easier on them and their families and the businesses they left behind?
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Dr. CHU. Sir, we could not agree with you more that more warning is better for the reservists; and we are in the process, I think, of improving that track record. Indeed, with more warning to the units involved, you could do more of the training, including health preparations at home station, and that reduces the total time away from home that the individual member of the Reserve Component must spend.
To the issues that you raised about compensation for reservists, indeed we are looking at all those kinds of questions. We are monitoring very carefully what actual results are, because that counts. The intentions are a good indicator of problems we may face, but that is not signing on the dotted line, so to speak.
I would say as a general strategy—and I think that is the spirit of some of the comments, some of the options you identified—that we are going to be careful to put any additional incentives where they are really going to have the most decisive effect.
As you look at the Reservist's career, and we have been doing a series of portrayals of how the compensation package arrives to the reservists, the irony as a result of actions we collectively have taken over the last 20 years, a good deal of it comes after you serve. It is in the retirement annuity, it is in TRICARE For Life and so on and so forth. And I think as we look forward to exactly the issue you are raising, the retention of those now serving, we need to be careful to be sure we put those incentives a bit more up front perhaps, where they will affect the immediate decision, ''Am I willing to continue this service to the Nation?''
Mr. TAYLOR. To the point of reducing the retirement age of those people who serve more than 20 years, since we have paid a heck of a lot of money to train them, or rewarding those who have done periods of extensive Active duty, I would hope that you would give some thought to addressing that in your next year's budget request. I think it would be a very fair thing, particularly for the Reserves, but also for the taxpayer. These are people who have gone above and beyond what we have asked them to do, and I think they ought to be rewarded for it.
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General PACE. Sir, I sat through a briefing yesterday with the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Dr. Chu was giving the briefing, and it was addressing just the topics you are talking about. I would say that I took away from that initial brief and its draft in many, many ways, but I took away from that initial brief a very sincere intent to ensure that those who serve more benefit more in a timely way.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
Dr. Chu, in spite of very good reports on high morale in our military services, clearly the increased deployment tempo, and especially so for Guard and Reserve, are presenting us with recruitment and retention challenges. There is another consideration that may be relevant here.
Approximately two-thirds of our military personnel are now married, and on the show today, Imus in the Morning, a Pentagon reporter noted that many—and I have no idea what that means—that many women have returned pregnant from Iraq. Considering that our military is today roughly two-thirds married, that could have significant morale implications for those spouses back home and could be a relevant factor in recruitment and retention.
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Do you have the statistics on what ''many'' means, and would you comment on this issue?
Dr. CHU. I have not seen the news report that you describe, sir, and therefore let me take that for the record, if I could, as to what ''many'' might mean in terms of pregnancy rates.
[The information referred to can be found in the hard copy.]
Dr. CHU. It is certainly true, as I think your broader—the broader frame of your question emphasizes, and I know that many military colleagues like to summarize this in a nice affirmism, that the decision to re-up is made around the family dinner table or kitchen table, as the case might be. But it is certainly true that family support is critical to decisions by military personnel to continue their service to the Nation.
And so we have actually, I would argue, placed even greater emphasis over the last several years—and I am very grateful for the support of this committee and your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for those initiatives. We have been trying to expand child care, for example. We have done a lot to improve family housing, both the actual stock of family housing and the allowance, brought down the out-of-pocket expense to the last eight percent or so that is left; and my hope is that in the 2005 budget request, we will ask that you close the remaining gap in that regard.
We are also paying close attention to what I think are the two most critical issues for families these days, given the earlier achievements in which this committee has played such a significant role; and that is—those two issues are spousal employment, careers really for spouses and what we can do to advantage them—not all of which is under the control of this department, I should acknowledge.
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It includes issues as to how spouses are treated for unemployment compensation purposes. Not all states will agree that when a spouse moves involuntarily with the military sponsor, that the loss of a job is unemployment. In fact, many states say, no, it is not, you made a voluntary decision to move.
But the other big issue, I think, is education. Quality of education for the family's children is one of—as with all American families, one of the preeminent desires of our military families, as well; and I think we need to partner—again, this is not solely a federal responsibility. We need a stronger partnership between this department and local school districts in order to improve those situations where they are not now strong, and there are too many, quite candidly, where they are not now strong.
Mr. BARTLETT. I have no idea what this reporter meant by ''many,'' and you said that you would provide that for the record. If ''many'' is really many, would it be appropriate, perhaps, to look at how we are using our personnel so that we might reduce this number?
Dr. CHU. We will certainly be glad to look at the issue, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.
Thank you very much and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Dr. Snyder.
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Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Dr. Chu, I just want to ask one question, if I could do it for the record. You don't need to say anything about it today, and it may be that I am off base a little bit here, but you mentioned ways of supporting the Guard and Reserve forces, and you talked—I think you gave five themes, one being ensuring adequate support to the reservists; that is, family, the employer, those kind of things.
But for the record, I would like your comments on, are we doing everything we ought to be doing to maintain contact between the unit and where they came from? Because those—the adjutant general and those folks are responsible ultimately for helping with training, restoring of equipment, maintaining support. And I understood there was scuttlebutt around the Pentagon and so on that there are quite severe restrictions on the ability of the home unit to come and visit and to see what is going on; and that may be something, since they are going to be away from 14 or 15 months, away from their home unit, that we may want to look at as part of maintaining support.
I wanted to ask you about what you refer to as the self-reporting of being well prepared. My guess is, if we poll every Member of Congress, were you well prepared for coming here, we would report to you, by gosh, yes, we were; and the Republic is great to have me.
But two points. First of all, the one out of eight reporting that they were not well prepared, that concerns me. I would not want to go into a hospital where one of the eight people serving there said, I am not well prepared today to take care of patients; or a frontline infantry unit where one out of eight said, I am not well prepared to handle the particular weaponry I am dealing with.
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I don't think we should be dismissive of those one out of eight that are reporting that they are not well prepared.
A specific example: I ran into a Guardsman back home who had enlisted seven or eight years ago, trained as a medic for the next seven years until being activated. Her monthly weekends were spent helping with annual physicals, and then she found herself in the midst of a busy emergency room in a combat zone during the Iraqi operation, totally overwhelmed by what she saw, and did not feel well prepared.
Well, that would be concerning to me both as a person who might be that medic, but also, I think, she was concerned about the patients she saw. So the second part of it is, is there a way of assessing this without just self-reporting?
Dr. CHU. Yes, sir, there is.
Mr. SNYDER. If I am a 19- or 24-year-old young person, I am going to say, yeah, I am well prepared to be doing what I am doing. But are you looking at that other than just self-reporting? So those are my two questions with regard to that area.
Dr. CHU. Absolutely, sir, and I am glad that General Pace commented on the more formal systems of the Department. I cited those numbers because I think they are an important indicator of the self-confidence of our people.
Second, I should emphasize why I call it self-reporting. It is just that. It is an individual filling out a survey. It is not the commander saying, do you have the skill that I would like to see you have?
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I should also emphasize that the numbers in the testimony are for those who checked either ''very well prepared'' or ''well prepared.'' There is a neutral box as well so that you can't just subtract that number and say the rest were not well prepared. That is not quite accurate as an indication of their preparation.
And as you know, sir, with surveys, the real question is how do these numbers trend over time, and this is a question we only recently started asking, so I don't have a report on that front.
But, yes, we do evaluate readiness with a much more formal system that is in the military. General Pace.
General PACE. Sir, I would say it is probably more important to self-critique after you have been successful than it is perhaps—or maybe it is more difficult to self-critique after you have been successful, but it is equally important to do that.
And the fact that from an overall standpoint we were delighted with the performance of the Reserve and the Guard forces, that does not mean that we did not do things wrong in bringing them on Active duty nor that we could not do things better. We can do a much better job of making sure they know when they are going to be called to Active duty, of being efficient with the time that we use when they are on Active duty, but still inside the United States and then being very specific and informative about how long they are going to be deployed when they are deployed.
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Additionally, we should take a look at the comments of the one in eight, because there are nuggets of gold in there that could inform us on how to do better. And it might just be that three in eight we would agree with, or five in eight we might agree with if they knew what the one-in-eight guy said. So we should do that, sir, and we are.
Mr. SNYDER. Dr. Chu, I wanted to ask you, there is a lot of question, of course, about end strength, but I want to talk specifically about one job assignment, and this is the area—in the area of civil affairs which almost—I think almost all of the folks that are involved in civil affairs in the Iraqi operation are Reserve forces; and I have talked to former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry about it and had some other discussions.
He just threw out a number that just said this needs to be a function that goes into the Active forces, that we shouldn't kid ourselves by saying—this is not what he said, but we shouldn't kid ourselves and say this is something that we can just call up when we need it, that we need civil affairs as an ongoing function all the time. And he threw out a number of 10,000 that we need, to just rapidly move to having 10,000 in the Active military involved in civil affairs.
Is that something you all are looking at as a direction we should be going?
Dr. CHU. We are. I should also offer a caution.
Again—and I think it is part of the earlier point that Mr. Saxton made about jointness and how we see this as a total force. I think we don't want to see this as a great wall between the reservists and the Active force, and much more as we try to portray the continuum service in which a Reserve person may come to Active duty. As Mr. Taylor is pointing out, some people may be much more than others and they are perhaps rewarded differently for that service.
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And one of the reasons I think that is important in specifically the civil affairs context is that many of the talents you want in a civil affairs specialist are best developed in the civil sector. The person who knows how to run a municipal waterworks best, of course, is someone who actually does that all the time; or as the excellent example of the colonel who was tracking down the looted Iraqi art objects who combines the abilities of a big-city prosecutor, one who is specialized in art theft, with his own background in classical antiquities.
So it may well be that the civil community in some areas possesses such a reservoir of experience, that what we really need to do is find a way to persuade some of those, quote, ''Reservists'' to spend a longer period of time on Active duty when we need them.
Mr. SNYDER. Thank you.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mrs. Wilson.
Mrs. WILSON OF NEW MEXICO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, like my colleagues, am very concerned about whether we have enough forces on Active duty in the Active and Reserve mix, and I was looking at your charts, Dr. Chu, and they don't start before September 2001, but I would guess that it continues on back at a fairly low level before then, and I don't think any of us anticipate that we are going to get back down to those levels anytime soon.
I have heard, General Pace, you were talking about the switches of people in the Active going to Reserve and slots in the Reserve going to Active. Are these plans to adjust those slots going to be incorporated in the fiscal year 2005 budget submission that is now being prepared?
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Dr. CHU. Many of them will be. All those that involve resource changes, of course, need to be. If we want to make them in the 2004-2005 period of time.
I do think this is a long-term issue, as I think some of the other questions indicated, what is the right structure, the right way to build American forces in the future, as Mr. Saxton indicated. Some of our classic measures here—divisions, wings, et cetera—may increasingly be off the mark in terms of describing what we actually have or what we need to have in terms of capabilities for the future. It is a capabilities-oriented force that I—as I watch the Department's deliberations, we are really trying to build.
General PACE. We have tried to war game ourselves out another 10 or 15 years in this regard, saying differently we expect the war on terrorism to last 10 or 15 more years, and therefore we are trying to figure out what is a spike and what is a new plateau with respect to the previous question, a new plateau as a requirement for more civil affairs personnel on Active duty. We have proven for the last two-plus years that we need civil affairs. We have been using those civil affairs in the Guard and Reserves, and therefore we need to change some of the mix between Active and Reserve from that standpoint.
On the other hand, we have got seven divisions in Iraq. We are down to four. Now we are going to three in the next rotation. And the projections are that as our forces come down, or said differently, as the Iraqi forces come up, which would add zero when we were at 160,000; and today we are at 130,000, and the Iraqi forces are at 115,000, and next May, when we are down to about three divisions, they will be up about 171,000. So as we look at projections for security requirements in Iraq and total capabilities of non-Iraqi coalition, Iraqi coalition and U.S., we think that the spike and need for ground troops will, in fact, continue to go down; that it is not a new plateau.
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So we will work through each of those. We are trying to make sure that we change ourselves and rebalance ourselves in a way that addresses a new plateau and allows us to surge for the spikes, but doesn't build excess capacity if we don't think we are going to need it.
If we do think we will need it, we will come ask.
Mrs. WILSON OF NEW MEXICO. Sometimes I feel in this job, it is not Washington, D.C., but we are in the Emerald City, and everybody is hoping that Toto doesn't go over and pull back the curtain.
But I have to tell you, you know, I look at these plans—your plans show a multinational division replacing the 101st Airborne in March or April. The 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne and the 173rd Airborne—the 2nd Brigade, you are deploying out in January 2004, and the 173rd again redeploying sometime—I think it is the middle of next year.
I don't see the security situation in Iraq changing fast enough, with the Iraqis being trained fast enough, or the likelihood of a multinational division being available in March of 2004 to replace the 101st.
What is your backup plan?
General PACE. I am not sure what you are looking at there, ma'am.
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Mrs. WILSON OF NEW MEXICO. I am looking at your slides that were provided here to the committee that say ''United States Army'' on them. I understand you are a Marine and maybe you are——
General PACE. No, no, I am responsible, I will take it. We have two——
Mrs. WILSON OF NEW MEXICO. Replace the 101st Airborne in March or April with the a multinational division. Is that still your expectation?
General PACE. The expectation, matching unit to unit is not correct. That may or may not be true. The numbers-wise may be correct, but may not be exactly what happens on the ground. The expectation is this: There are two coalition divisions there now and that those two coalition divisions will be replaced. That is the expectation and we believe that we have, through our State Department commitments from the countries, that that will in fact happen.
The other expectation is that our four divisions that are currently there will be replaced by three divisions and that will be sufficient, based on the buildup of Iraqi security forces, to make up the difference in size.
Mrs. WILSON OF NEW MEXICO. Well, we have had the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) look at your plans and I have looked at these and I do not see a whole lot of wiggle room. And I think all of us are concerned that by early to mid-next year we are going to see back-to-back combat deployments for American military personnel and you cannot sustain that for very long without acknowledging forthrightly that we need to increase the end strength of our Active duty people in order to meet the needs of our continuing war on terrorism. In the 1990s we went from 18 Active divisions down to 10. You all know that and know that better than I do.
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We have not adjusted that active duty force since we started the war on terrorism and we have to be able to sustain this for the long-haul. There are all kinds of innovative things that we can do and I am glad you are doing this. Looking at what kind of things you can shift around, what kinds of logistic bombs going on the target and you need fewer to be shipped, that is all well and good, but I don't think that is enough.
And I hope in this fiscal year 2005 budget proposal that we see a clearer plan for the long-term that is more than smoke and mirrors.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General PACE. There is certainly some judgment that we need to apply on that. That the belief is that—correction, right now with the forces going over, the force is about—the active force is coming home for about one year and going back for about one year. And that over a period of ten years that would not be what we would want to do, but between now and 2005, we believe that that requirement will get back more to the norm of one year out and two years back, or one year out and three years back. The question is and the judgment call is, and this is what we keep struggling with, is that a peak or a plateau? It takes about two years to recruit, train and build one Army division. If I sit here and say, I believe that by 2006 I will not need that division, then I should not ask you to give it to me. If I think I will need it, then I should ask you to give it to me.
All of the war games that we have done tell us that we will not need that extra division based on all the other factors that we have talked about. But it is clearly a judgment about current status, future needs, and the ability to transform inside the size force that we currently have.
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Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Larsen, I am sorry; I will get to you, Mr. Schrock, in a second.
Mr. LARSEN OF WASHINGTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you calling this hearing today, and my questions really build off of my colleague from New Mexico's questions. First thing I wanted to point out is that you mentioned, General Pace, you mentioned that total Iraqi security forces number about 115,000 right now, and our information from a slide in there from the Joint Chiefs dated October 21st has that total number on October 21st, about 85,000. There is a 29,500 difference. That is two weeks ago. If you could explain that discrepancy, how we get 30,000 additional. I want to walk through some other numbers, but keep that in mind.
But I cannot help but think that this discussion that we are having today is academic if we cannot disengage our troops from Iraq. And I am concerned that we are training to a number of security forces in Iraq, as opposed to a capability of those security forces. Let me walk through the numbers that at least I have.
By August of next year, our plan is to have around 170,000 total Iraqi security forces trained, according to information that we have. I think this goal right now is overly ambitious and nearly impossible to meet. The plan is a standup of a 40,000-person Iraqi army by then and there are 700 trained now. There is a goal of 22,000 in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and only 4,700 trained now. And there is actually a report, I think it was yesterday or today, of moving Iraqis from the Facility Protection Service into the Civilian Defense Corps, which means that we need to replace those in the Facility Protection Service. If we remove the numbers of total police trained, which is 55,000, and we have a goal of 75,000, we are actually right now at about 32 percent of the security forces needed to directly address the threat of foreign terrorists and Baath Party loyalists that our troops are facing right now, 32 percent of the total security forces that we need.
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Given this tremendous challenge of training the Iraqi security forces, their current capabilities, which I am sure fall short of the capabilities of our own women and men in the military who are there, and the increasing sophistication of the attacks that are taking place in Iraq, is it really realistic to believe that we can stand up a capable Iraqi security force by August of 2004, next year? And if we cannot, is it realistic to expect that we are going to be able to draw down our own women and men in the military in Iraq so that we can have the freedom to do what we need to do militarily around the world?
That is the biggest concern that I hear from folks that I represent and one of the concerns that I have, that if we do not find a way to disengage from Iraq we are stuck in Iraq.
Can you address those issues starting with answering the specifics question about the discrepancy?
Finally, if I could make one last note and I will get off of my soap box. The report this morning that Ambassador Bremer is allowing former Iraqi military to be trained to be part of the new military, I think is disappointing to me. But I think that it is the only choice left and it is the worst choice possible that we have left in Iraq. And these bad choices keep adding up in Iraq, which I think long-term is going to be a detriment to our policy in Iraq.
General PACE. I will take them as best I can. If I forget, you will remind me.
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Starting from the back. They had an army; the Iraqis had an army of about 400,000. Surely the senior leadership, those who were card-carrying Baathist Party members who are really bad guys have no business coming back. But there are arguably 300,000 of that 400,000-man army who were sergeants and below who were trained to a certain degree who are serving in their army like we serve in ours and they are not ideologically defined one way or another. So we ought not to ignore that vast population of eligible males just because they happened to be in the previous army that did things that we did not like.
Second, the discrepancies in numbers—I will tell you that the 115,000 number that I told you today will change tomorrow, may change this afternoon, because as we go about trying to keep score, as we go into the ministries, for example, that are run by Iraqis, we find out that they have hired a thousand guys to protect this thing or that thing. So as we roll up the numbers of individuals who are being paid to do security of some type in theater, we have found that our original understanding of what that number was was too low.
Regardless of that number, what you said is very important, which is capability is important, not specifically numbers. So I would also add to that the environment inside of which they will be working. If the environment was the same in August of 2004 as said now, then the lesser capability of those forces would not be what you would want to replace coalition forces. On the other hand, if we are pushing forward not only on addressing the five types of security forces, but also pushing forward on self governance and making sure that the Iraqi people understand that they are in fact going to take over their own country, that they are going to be able to elect their own representatives and the like, then the environment inside of which we are working will become more stable.
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Our projections are not based on hope. Our projections are based on worst case. If we are not able to have a better environment, if we are not able to have increased numbers of Iraqis providing for their own security, then we will replace our own people with our own people. And that is how we are planning 2005.
But we believe that we will not have to execute that, because I do believe that the money that you all just allocated in the supplemental, a huge chunk goes to helping to rebuild Iraq. And the environment will change because of that, and the training, we will be able to accelerate training in all five areas and we will be able to produce a much more capable—not an army like ours, but a much more capable security force adequate to the environment in which they are going to have to operate.
Mr. LARSEN OF WASHINGTON. I appreciate the answer. I hope you are right. I really do. That is why I voted for the $87 billion because of the reconstruction dollars, a critical part of the security element. But it is something that I hope as a committee we continue to watch very closely. The future deployments depend on it.
General PACE. And we will watch it with you and for you. And we will not base our military planning on hope, but on worst case factors so we are ready for the worst case. Pleased if the worst case does not happen.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Schrock.
Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Secretary and General, for being here. I think for the first time since I have been here, I agree with all the comments that have been said by every member on both sides of the aisle. I know that may seem like a cop-out, but we all share those same concerns. I am very concerned about the Reserve Components. I think the notice to Reserves has probably been improved since we began this process. We do have to worry about how we are going to keep them, because if we are going to keep them there a year or so and we told them six months, that is going to be a big problem.
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That came home to me on an NBC piece—a couple from Ohio—he is going to be there 14 months. He thought it was going to be six. They own two businesses that are going to have to go on the auction block and they will lose their home, and we should not be doing that to our people. And I am sure they are not the only family in America that is facing that, and I worry about that.
General Schoomaker in his confirmation hearings said he intuitively believed the Army needs more people. And in the September 2003 CBO report, ''An Analysis of the U.S. Military's Ability to Sustain an Occupation in Iraq,'' it says, and I quote: ''The active Army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size in Iraq beyond about March 2004 if it chose not to keep individual units deployed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief.'' And we just simply cannot do that.
That being said, given that the war on terror is going to be a multiyear protracted conflict, that we seem to be utilizing both our active duty force and our Reserves near the edge of their capability, by not increasing the end strength in either body, it seems we are betting that there will not be another incident that is going to require a surge that will upset our planning and extend our force beyond acceptable levels.
Can we afford to not increase the end strength to provide more flexibility? Is a redistribution of the skills adequate? When I was in Iraq—I have been there twice and I am going again—we heard over and over again from the generals in the field that they do not need more people, but they need more intelligence folks and special operation forces. I thought we needed hundreds of thousands of troops, like General Shinseki said. I came back not believing that. I am bothered by that. This war on terror is so incredibly unpredictable, the way it is today may not be the way it is next week. There is such a jumble of information that is coming to us. I wonder what is the right mix to send there and how we are going to solve this thing.
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Dr. CHU. Could I say a word on the unpredictability issue. I think it goes to the larger personnel policies this committee has helped the Department sustain the last 10, 15 years. I think one of the greatest assets this Department has in dealing with the unpredictability is the quality of the people in our ranks, both enlisted and officer. That costs money. It is an expensive force in that regard, setting high standards both in terms of the people we recruit as well as how we train them, and that again requires resources.
But I think we have seen the payoff in the ability of these high quality, well prepared individuals to take the skills they already have, take the knowledge they have and deal effectively with the situation in hand, even if it is not quite the situation that we anticipated going in. And it will never be exactly the situation we anticipate going in.
So a larger question that you raised that is very much at the forefront of the Department's planning, as I think General Pace and I both emphasized, we are looking rebalancing the skill mix within the Department. You can see that in the chart I showed earlier that some communities we called up a high proportion from the Reserve. Other communities we have not needed a lot. Maybe we need to take some of those individuals and invite them to retrain in the skills that are more in demand. We have begun that process right now. The Army has started a process of creating a series of provisional military police (MP) companies, as I think you are aware, and that is one of the first steps in that process.
Mr. SCHROCK. I think I, too, was concerned. Mr. Larsen of Washington mentioned that the Ambassador had mentioned that they are going to try to find some of the former Iraqi army people and there was a cringe in my stomach thinking, is this a last ditch effort? Do we have so many problems that we have to do that? And I don't know the answer to that. I worry about that. We are burning these people up and we simply cannot do that.
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General PACE. Sir, I couldn't hear everything you said, but I think I heard most of it and I certainly agree that we need to pay very close attention to those resources that we use frequently, of which we have very few. And we are working diligently to identify those, and they are self evident, and also to get after them. Human intelligence, for example: we need to do work there. Special operations capabilities. We have learned how very, very beneficial those kinds of things are.
I should point out just in case there are folks around the world who may not understand as well as you do, Mr. Schrock, that this Nation has a portion of its military right now apportioned to overseas commitments right now. But we have, as you would expect, war gamed out potential adversaries around the world who might miscalculate, and they need to know—I know you do, but they need to know that we have maximum capacity left to handle anything that comes our way. That is separate from the issue you raised, but I would not want anyone to misunderstand the vast capacity of this Nation to do its military business.
Mr. SCHROCK. I agree. We recruit men and women to come into the uniform, but we reenlist their families and the strain is starting to get there. So I am very concerned about that.
Thank you very much both of you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BARTLETT [presiding]. Mr. Cooper.
Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very glad, General Pace, you made that preceding point. I was worried about that implication being misunderstood by our Nation's adversaries.
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Dr. Chu, you mentioned earlier in your testimony that on a quarterly basis the Pentagon surveyed active duty and other Reserve and Guard personnel.
Dr. CHU. Roughly every four months actually.
Mr. COOPER. Could the committee have access to those surveys?
Dr. CHU. Delighted to, sir. We publish a nice volume. Glad to get those out to you. There is typically a several month delay between the survey date itself and the compilation of the results.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. COOPER. It is my understanding talking with staff that none of those have been made available so far. If you could do that on a prompt basis, that would be very helpful. Why the delay?
Dr. CHU. Between survey administration and tabulation? It just takes time to pull all the results together to make sure that you have a clean set of data and so you know what you are looking at. One of the things that you have to watch out for constantly is that you cannot use raw, unweighted results; you need to weight the various cells by the proportion that those respondents represent in the large population. That takes a while simply to compute. We have sped it up. It used to take a year or so to process these results. We have gotten it down to a few months.
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Mr. COOPER. As you know, many of these people on this committee are expert in polling, and it does not take many months to get the data back and cleaned up from a commercial poll.
Dr. CHU. That is generally a different kind of poll, sir. As you know, this is usually a yes-or-no question: Do you support Candidate A or Candidate B? This is a more complex issue here.
Mr. COOPER. Many political polls are quite sophisticated and they are not just yes-or-no answers.
Dr. CHU. They also generally serve 1,000 respondents. We are talking about 50,000 respondents.
Mr. COOPER. Another question, could you provide this committee with a list of the military units that are currently performing civilian type functions that perhaps should be performed by civilians?
Dr. CHU. We have actually provided those data to the committee staff earlier, but glad to do it again. It is actually not by unit, sir. It is by skill area, so that you can get down to understanding which positions might be either converted to civil or contractor function.
Mr. COOPER. But surely the Pentagon understands it on a unit basis. Do you not have a plan to convert numbers of these jobs to civilian work and do you not know by unit which of those units would have their responsibilities transferred?
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Dr. CHU. You could put it back together that way, yes, sir. What I am emphasizing is the detailed database that you are interested in which we have provided to the committee staff is by basically position. So it is much more fine grained.
Mr. COOPER. On TV this morning they had a picture of a specialist. She and her husband has been called up to serve in Iraq. Apparently they have five or more children in Colorado. She was faced with the terrible dilemma of being returned to duty or, following a court order, to be there to take care of the kids. I think that is probability an extreme example of the stress that families are being put under when both husband and wife are serving in Iraq and there are multiple children back home. This lady told a nationwide TV audience that she was being forced by the judge to be absent without leave (AWOL) from the military because she chose to stay with her children over returning to duty in Iraq. I don't know the facts of the particular case. All I saw was on TV, but that is an example of the personal stress that families can be subjected to when both husband and wife are called up.
There is a Tennessee guard artillery unit that has just been told they need to convert to MP duties. They are about to train in Ft. Leavenwood, Missouri. It is my understanding from talking to one of the officers who processed the paperwork that even though we are the Volunteer State in Tennessee, these troops were not enthusiastic about the forced conversion. They did not sign up to be MPs. They signed up to be artillerymen and women. And that, I think, is another example of the stress that our troops are being subjected to. They did not sign up for—they did not anticipate and they will be patriotic; they will do their duty. But it is one reason I am enthusiastic about my colleague Mrs. Wilson's letter to have more active duty personnel, who are in fact serving the duties that they signed up to perform.
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About how many units are expected to be converted to MP duties across the country? Converted from artillery or other skills to MPs?
Dr. CHU. My understanding, sir, which I will be glad to check for the record is that the Army intends to stand up 19 MP companies.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. COOPER. Finally, I talked with a pediatric heart surgeon who was commanded to operate on an adult heart on active duty even though he told the commander that he had not seen an adult heart from the inside in many years.
Do we know precisely how many health care skills are being—we are short of those health care skills and we do not have the personnel to, for example, operate on adult hearts?
Dr. CHU. I am surprised by the report, sir, and actually by some of the other examples you offered. Glad to look into some of those examples. On the surgeons specifically, we have excellent capacity between the combination of our in-house uniformed service and our TRICARE network. So it would not be appropriate to have a surgeon conduct an operation for which he or she was not properly prepared, but glad to look into it. I do not know anything about the facts of this case or whether the facts are accurate.
To your lady, both called up, I am impressed by the degree to which the military departments take compassionate need into account when that situation occurs. It does sound like you have a struggle between two different branches of the government going on, State, Judiciary and Federal responsibility.
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Mr. COOPER. Again, she would not be AWOL?
Dr. CHU. I don't know, sir. I am not familiar with the facts of these cases, so I shouldn't speak to them.
Mr. COOPER. I thank the Chair.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both for being here today. And Secretary Chu, I appreciate your concern for our troops serving and for their families, and I can tell you firsthand, just completing 31 years with the Army National Guard, where my job was to provide premobilization military counseling, that the military does an extraordinary job of looking out for families, looking out for the troops. And I have a personal interest. I have two sons in the Army National Guard and another son who is active duty in college in the Navy. So I am covering everybody, General, but the Marines and Air Force.
Again, I am really very pleased. In my service, I know I have never seen the morale higher, the spirit higher among Guard members and family members for their service. And it is just an extraordinary time in history. And they know that they are fulfilling a significant role in the war on terror and that the war on terror is today to fight the war overseas and do all that we can to avoid the war coming to the—or returning to the United States. This is not a war we sought.
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And Secretary Chu, in particular, you mentioned about volunteerism as a critical element and you point out that can include persons such as me and my three-month career as a veteran. It includes veterans, former persons who have served. And I want to bring to your attention that I have introduced a bill, the State Defense Force Improvement Act of 2003, which promotes the enhancement of State Guards.
In South Carolina we have a State Guard. These are persons who are retired military. Many have no military background, but they backfill at armories. They provide assistance during natural emergencies such as hurricanes. And I would urge your consideration of that bill, because there is a reservoir—and I run into it, we all do—of thousands of persons who would participate. And I urge you to look into this bill. I think it would immediately bring in across the United States tens of thousands of persons who are very patriotic and civically minded.
A question that I have for both of you, because it concerns me, particularly General Pace—the criticism that we hear that this is another Vietnam. Would you please from your perspective—and this is really applicable to both of you—from a military perspective, from a personnel perspective, how would you differentiate what we are doing today in Iraq from Vietnam?
General PACE. Sir, I would categorically tell you that this is not another Vietnam and I will follow up. I would be remiss if I did not thank you for your comments about the tremendous job that the Guard and Reserves are doing and thanks to you and your family for serving.
But this is not a Vietnam, sir. I served in Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader, and I fought against Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese regular army. There is no regular army. There is no Viet Cong that we are fighting again. We do have former regime loyalists and some terrorists home grown and imported that we are fighting against, and we will handle that militarily. And there will be days where we will do well and there will be days where we are not happy about the results, but we will press this fight militarily.
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We need to provide the environment inside of which self governance can come into being to where the Iraqi government can stand on its own two feet and start to provide the services that governments provide to their citizens.
We still have, understandably, a large portion of Iraqi people who are afraid that we are going to leave before the job is done, and they are afraid to stand up and be counted because they are afraid they will be left at the wrong time. That will change over time and the way to help change that is to work on the governance piece and to make it apparent to everybody, as it is to us, that we will stay until this job is done and the Iraqi people have their own country back.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. And Secretary Chu, you would like to comment?
Dr. CHU. Sir, let me just echo the thanks of General Pace for your long service and underscore the point that you made that volunteerism does come in all shapes and sizes and forms, and we would like to advantage the Nation of all those who would like to serve in whatever capacity they may be able to do.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you very much, and I yield the balance of my time.
Mr. BARTLETT. I would like to recognize our ranking member.
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Mr. SKELTON. Following up on Mr. Cooper's inquiry, Doctor, Harry Truman is probably turning over in his grave, because Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, Missouri National Guard, is being activated as an MP unit when it was historically an artillery unit. The entire brigade, plus its sister brigade, 128th Field Artillery, is being activated, as well. All of them become MPs.
My question is, after this Iraqi situation ends, will those two—I said brigades, battalions, pardon me—will those two battalions revert to artillery or will they remain military police?
Dr. CHU. I don't know. I would emphasize that the 19 provisional companies I identify are called provisional for just that reason. This is seen as something for the next several years, not necessarily the long-term answer.
I think coming back to what General Pace testified to earlier, the Department as a whole, and General Schoomaker specifically for the Army, is rethinking how we structure the military best for the long term. And that, I think, is really the heart of transformation. Some of the classic formations, while historically important, may no longer be the best——
Mr. SKELTON. In other words, you have not gotten there yet?
Dr. CHU. That is absolutely correct.
Mr. SKELTON. But for the immediate future, they will be activated shortly, go through MP training and go to their duty stations?
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Dr. CHU. Absolutely right.
Mr. SKELTON. And from that point you do not know whether they will remain MPs or not?
Dr. CHU. I do not know, sir.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you. Thank you for letting me interrupt.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Bishop.
Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Dr. Chu, several questions I had about retention capabilities have been adequately queried by my senior members back here. I do have a question that deals, if I might, with another area of your responsibility if I could.
Actually I would like to ask you about a recent decision that has come forth to my attention about the ability of closing 19 defense commissaries domestically and internationally. We have a memo dated August 29 by your Chief Deputy, Charles Able, directing the Defense Commissary Agency Board, as it says, ''based on the number of active duty personnel assigned and the proximity of a larger commissary, please submit plans to close the following commissaries in 2004.'' There are 19 places, including Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
As you can figure out, I represent Dugway Proving Ground, which has the opportunity of upsetting the local community there, 1,000 to 1,200 citizens who are living in that particular area significantly. Dugway has often been treated in my opinion, even though this is my first year going back, in a unique and sometimes shabby way. Three times it has been placed on the BRAC list and each time the Army comes back and says it has made a mistake, that Dugway is the only place that the military can still do critical chemical and biological testing, and that situation has not changed since 1995 and perhaps has become more critical since 9/11 and recent events.
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Dr. Chu, I understand that you have never had the chance of being out to that remote desert location in Utah, and I am under the assumption that Mr. Able has never been to Dugway Proving Ground personally, as well. Am I wrong?
Dr. CHU. I don't know. I have not been.
Mr. BISHOP. It is a unique opportunity. I would urge you, if you do go, to go during the summer and in the daytime. Going there over Johnson Pass in the winter can be a dicey opportunity and at night, unless you have a good deer detector.
The memo that was sent out implies the commissary should be closed because of the proximity of another commissary. My office has placed a call to Mr. Able, but we have not received a response yet. To my knowledge, the nearest commissary is at Hill Air Force base 120 miles away, 2 hours drive from any direction. Do you know of any other commissary to which the reference was made in making this particular description that it would be closer?
Dr. CHU. Let me, if I may, invite us all to step back from the specifics and answer what I think is your implicit question, which is why are we doing this? First of all, we have not decided to do this. The memorandum to which you refer is a step in the process which we go through every year, which we look at the stores least compliant with the policy criteria we use for deciding whether a store should be open in the first place. And those ultimately are founded in direction from the Congress and the statutes that give us the authority to operate these places.
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One of the criteria, and the criterion that Dugway is specifically at risk on, is the number of active duty personnel supported, which is 100. In other words, the trigger is 100 or more. Or adversely——
Mr. BISHOP. Dr. Chu, I do not mean to be rude—I am being rude here—but as I understand, the criteria you established in the year 2001 said 100 personnel or fewer and also a 30-mile radius to the closest commissary. The problem I have though is that there are double that number of military personnel at Dugway, and the radius is 120 miles. It is 60 miles to the nearest store, 120 miles. So none of those criteria are met.
I guess what I am asking without necessarily having you defend the decision, is if you would help me to look into this matter and put this one to rest. As I understand it, this proving ground does not meet the criteria for closing on these remote locations. It is significantly above that criteria to which you were just speaking.
Dr. CHU. I think we do disagree on a key number, which is how many active personnel there are. We could certainly look at that. The criteria are a rank order that does not all have to apply. But as I want to emphasize, I started to respond, what you are referring to is a memorandum that is the next step in the process. We send it back to each military department. Basically, the challenge to the military department where a store would not otherwise merit being retained is to make the case, which you have eloquently tried to outline, of why nonetheless we should do so and provide necessary subsidy to do so. Or the alternative is to provide some other solution. But we do understand Dugway is an unusual spot with unusual needs and we are not going to leave people in the lurch.
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Mr. BISHOP. I would appreciate it. These are the e-mails I have received so far.
Dr. CHU. I am sure it has created a great deal of anxiety and it was not intended to do so, I should emphasize.
Mr. BISHOP. I cannot emphasize how much anxiety it has created out there, and I would appreciate it if you would look into that as well and if you could remedy this as soon as possible, as it would make my life a whole lot happier.
Dr. CHU. Will do that.
Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. Ms. Bordallo.
Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My first question is to you, Dr. Chu. Our troops are truly doing an outstanding job in Iraq, and while they are on the job our responsibility is to provide for the welfare of the troops and their families back home. In the short trip that I took out to Iraq with my colleagues, we were presented with a host of facts and figures. The one which caught my attention was that there have been 13 suicides of soldiers deployed in Iraq. The number of attempted suicides was not disclosed. The figure was not available when I asked that question.
I think that the number is one data point we should keep in mind when we discuss sustaining our global commitments, and I would like for to you comment on this.
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Dr. CHU. Delighted to. First, let me emphasize that we are watching this issue very carefully, not only in Iraq, but elsewhere across the entire force. For Iraq specifically, the Army sent a team to Iraq just in September. I am awaiting its report on its finding.
I should note that any suicide is a tragedy, particularly among young people. And it is a nationwide issue, as you know, especially true on our college campuses. People are very worried about that.
I would observe that the suicide rate in the American military on average is about the same as the national rate, age—adjusted and gender—adjusted. It is higher in one service than the others. That is one of the concerns that we have. Why is that true?
Back to our survey data, I am actually pleased that in terms of personal stress there is no—quite strikingly—no big difference between deployed and nondeployed personnel, at least most recent ones we have. Bottom line: we are watching that very carefully. We are eager to hear what the Army investigational team, which includes appropriate mental health specialists, will report and we will act accordingly.
Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Dr. Chu.
My other question is in returning to my home of Guam recently, we are beginning to deploy our Reservists and National Guard members. We have a very large group of National Guard and Reservists in Guam. I spoke to the families about how important that it is they communicate and that their conversations always be upbeat because there is nothing worse than to air out family problems when the soldier is out in the field and there is nothing he can do.
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But I did hear that the communication sometimes is not there, and I was just wondering, do you have a program set up—I know we have the National Guard Family Association, but do you have something in particular for Iraqi Freedom that you have set up for the Guardsmen and the Reservists?
Dr. CHU. We have expanded our effort for family support to all troops, both Active and Reserve Component. Let me look specifically to be sure we have done the right thing in Guam, since it is a different location.
Ms. BORDALLO. This would be a different type of organization than dealing the war on terrorism, and up to this point it is just an organization that is there, organized. They take care of family gatherings and things like that. But this is a different field now, and I really feel that we should do something in that respect.
I have one further question, Mr. Chairman, if I could. I understand you have jurisdiction over PXs and commissaries. Is that correct, Dr. Chu?
Dr. CHU. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. BORDALLO. While in Iraq, I noted numerous employees in the PX were from Bangladesh, and I realize the security situation was an issue in the beginning. But is there now a move to try to employ Iraqis in these positions, particularly since there is over 50 percent unemployment there? And I think to me, when I was in Iraq, I noticed the tension among people and whenever there is unemployment that high, you know that there will be unrest until we are able to deal with that.
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So I was wondering are we putting Iraqis into positions rather than employing outsiders?
Dr. CHU. The United States is employing or providing economic support to a large number of Iraqis. I don't know the specific exchange situation you are describing, but glad to look into it.
Ms. BORDALLO. I understand that the private sector is now taking over, but maybe some mention should be made that they should make an effort to try to employ the Iraqis so that this unemployment number goes down.
Thank you, Dr. Chu.
Mr. BARTLETT. The Chair will now recognize members in the order of their appearance on the committee after gavel fall.
Mrs. Davis of California.
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Chu and General Pace, for being here, as well.
I wonder if you could just go back to a few of the issues that we addressed earlier in terms of the Reserve units and the active duty officers. And one of the statements that you made in your remarks is that the attrition rates remain at the lowest levels in recent history for the Reserve Component officer and enlisted personnel. But you did mention that the high demand units and high use units and specialties have experienced higher than normal attrition and those are in those areas that we obviously need people in—in public affairs, civil affairs, psychological operations, and security forces.
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You mentioned that in rebalancing the force, you need to figure out ways to relieve stress. Can you expand on that? Because if those are the areas we are suggesting we need many more people in, I am wondering how we are planning to do that. What kind of real motivation—what is it that we are going to be doing to create, I guess, a desire, really, on the part of people to be in that area, because people perceive that as really quite a risky area today?
And I think in conjunction with that question, when I visited Iraq, one of the things that was clear to me at that particular time at the end of September is that we did not have people in place in a number of communities, including Kirkuk and other major communities where we had a presence of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and so the military in many ways was providing a kind of key liaison position with the CPA.
And so, part of that was because we did not have individuals from the State Department who were taking on that role. I understand now that they have staffed up for that, but that is only for a three-month period of time. And the kind of stability that is really required for that position, I think, will be lost on people who are only there for a short period of time.
Can you address this? It seems to me this is the area that we need people and we need well-trained people, and I am getting a sense that it is tough to find them and that we are not keeping them very well.
Dr. CHU. Let me not try to comment on the State Department situation since I am not really knowledgeable about that, but let me respond to your broad question, if I may, which is the willingness of young people or even not so young people to volunteer for these various assignments.
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First, as you appreciate, there are a variety of motivations for why people volunteer. Some volunteer because they want to be part of something important. That is a critical element of volunteerism for military service and other responsibilities. So in some cases, all we need to do is ask. Some of the fault is our own in having structured too few units or too few people in the skill areas of need.
We also, thanks to this committee and your colleagues, have a variety of incentives we can offer people to choose those areas where we need more individuals. Those can be monetary in character—some of them are nonmonetary in character. We are prepared to use those incentives and have used them historically generally successfully. Some of it is inviting people who are trained in one skill area to train in another skill area. Sometimes that is popular and sometimes it is not. If you do not like it and your obligation in the service is finished, that is fine. Let's find someone else who does like it and get him or her to volunteer.
That is what we are all about. That has been the great success of the all-volunteer force of getting all of those parts to work together to produce the intended result here.
I am not worried about our ability to produce more people in these various areas. I am not surprised in the areas that we stress more that we would have higher attrition. That is normal. In part, it will be solved if we indeed produce more people with the skills necessary so that the burden on those in those skill areas is reduced. So the very act of acknowledging we need more structure, acting to provide that structure or those skilled individuals will by itself help, I believe, attrition in those areas.
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Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Do you think that requires a major initiative to do that?
Dr. CHU. It requires constant attention and vigilance on our part. Whether you want to call it a major initiative or not on that, I leave to the beholder.
General PACE. If I could add, ma'am, on the retention side of the house, we have to be careful what we derive from the snapshot in time we have right now. And we know that our retentions and enlistments are stable and in good shape. We also historically know how we have gotten in trouble in the past and we need to stay on top of those issues rather than wait for them to come at us before we are ready for them.
Examples: Individuals want to know that they have got a really important mission in life. And I would say that that block is checked. These folks are doing great work and they are proud of what they are doing, and we are proud of them.
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I would agree with you.
General PACE. Two, we need to make sure that we treat them the way they should be treated and we get mostly good marks here, but in some places not good marks. We have not done a good enough job in the past of informing our Reserves and Guard when they will get called, giving them enough time to get their family lives in order, and then telling them how long they are going to be gone and not changing in the middle of their tour how much longer they will be on.
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Those things impact a person's, a family's decision later on whether or not to stay in. What the Congress does for benefits and pay makes a huge difference. But, again, we need to be careful, because if you look at reenlistment rates in Iraq right now, they are going to be relatively high compared to the rest of the Armed Services. A part of that is because folks there understand exactly what they are doing for their country. Another part is the tax break they get because they are there. We need to look at the data and not let today's good data lull us into believing that we are okay. On the other hand, we need to be careful not to believe the wrong parts of the data.
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I think part of my question, too, is in the changing mission. And whether you think that the outreach changes with what I might call, you all might call as nation building as opposed to other military activities that we acknowledge. Is there a difference?
General PACE. I think there is a difference for who volunteers for what type of mission. Different kind of guys volunteer for the Marines, some folks volunteer to be Army, Air Force, Navy. The individual volunteers for the organization that they think they best want to be like or fit in. When you then start changing how that organization is functioning, you will have an impact on whether or not the individuals who are currently in it want to stay and you will have an impact on who thinks about volunteering to become part of it in the future. So we have to be careful how we do that.
Mr. SIMMONS [presiding]. Mr. Meehan.
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Mr. MEEHAN. General Pace, today's Washington Post says that Ambassador Bremer is planning on using former members of Saddam Hussein's security services to help collect intelligence, conduct raids, and provide other assistance in the stabilization operations.
I think we made a mistake demobilizing the Iraqi army, but the question now is, how can we make sure that the people we use to help secure the country will not create a whole new set of human rights problems, the issue of whether or not there is a basic problem of asking the same people who helped Saddam Hussein keep tabs on his opposition help the U.S. military?
I assume there is some system set up for vetting these people, but the question is, how we can make sure that this does not at least create the perception—the perception being 90 percent of this—that is we have put the bad guys back in charge?
General PACE. I cannot speak to the validity of the Washington Post article. I had the opportunity to sit down with Ambassador Bremer Monday and Tuesday. He and General Abizaid were in town talking to the Secretary and others. This issue was very much a discussion point. Your concern was very much a discussion point.
Clearly, we do not have files on every Iraqi, so we do not know what their real past is. We have the ability to vet some of these individuals with Iraqis who we trust from the same local community. We certainly intend on watching very carefully how they are doing their jobs and, more importantly, how they are received by the people in local communities. We had in one of the southern cities a particular mayor come forward and turned out that the people very quickly told coalition forces that this person was somebody who should not be in that kind of a position and he was removed.
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I think you are going to have some trial and error, based on the best system that you can set up right now, based on the knowledge you have, and then watching it very carefully and seeing the people's reaction. They know who the bad guys are in their hometowns. So when you stand up a Civil Defense Corps in Najaf, the people in Najaf are going to very quickly react to who they see on the street and we will be able to monitor that, as well.
Mr. MEEHAN. General, a story in the New York Time Magazine this weekend, and I did not hear the Imus program this morning, but I happened to look at this piece this weekend. It was entitled ''Blueprint for a Mess,'' which basically lays out what I think is a disturbing account on the prewar plans for Iraq reconstruction that the administration laid out.
The article says what I think many of us have observed, that while the Department of Defense (DOD) meticulously planned out phases one through three of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is the various stages for the invasion itself—and I think all of us would agree it was a masterful plan implemented masterfully with seamless integration of the services—basically, the argument goes that it did not adequately prepare for phase four, the so-called stability and support operations.
The piece cites a report prepared for the Department of Defense by the Joint Chiefs of Staff entitled Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategic Lessons Learned, which acknowledges that late formation of the Department of Defense phase four organization had limited time for the development of detailed plans and the lack of predeployment coordination.
I am wondering what are the Department of Defense and the CPA doing to try to incorporate lessons learned from this report into the planning that is ongoing now? And how can we incorporate lessons learned into our strategy for handling stabilization reconstruction efforts in the future?
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I think all of us would agree that analyzing the first Gulf War and then when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, it was just extraordinary how much we learned from the first Gulf War and how we implemented what we learned in the invasion of Iraq. How do we incorporate the same lessons learned into reconstruction and stabilization efforts?
General PACE. Sir, you have got me just a little bit out of my lane, so I will try to answer you with the uniform I have on and within my responsibilities. I wish we had a policy person here to help with the rest of that question. I will give you my best answer. I will just do that.
First of all, we had in the workup to the war, throughout the war, and after the war, critiquers, lessons learned people in Tampa, in Washington, D.C., in the theater who were helping us learn as we went. So, arguably, many of the things that changed in General Tom Franks' war plan changed because he war gamed himself in front of the lessons learned people who helped him see things that maybe he himself had not seen and were able to correct before we did them.
During the execution on the ground, lessons were learned that were responded to very quickly, and we have done a very healthy—I believe very healthy self-appraisal right now on lessons learned.
There was a point in time where my memory tells me that we did not want to be planning for a post-war in Iraq before we were sure we were going to go to war in Iraq. We did not want to have a plan for the post-war make the war inevitable. And as I recall, it was around January of this year that it became evident that it was very likely that we would be going to war than not and that is when, as I recall, the Office For Reconstruction was stood up and the policy folks inside the building and others in the government began starting to pull together some of the item ideas that would be needed to run post-war Iraq.
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I am sure that there were many, many lessons there to be learned, and it does not surprise me that our own military board points out that had we known in October for sure that we were going to be at war in March, no doubt in my mind we would have stood up the Office of Reconstruction in October. But in October there was still every expectation and hope that the international community would be able to revolve this without combat.
Mr. MEEHAN. Just by way of comment, I don't know how we could have planned military conflict without having a plan for reconstruction. Many of us said the difficulty in this challenge in Iraq was not necessarily whether or not we could complete a military victory, but what do we do with what we have left? And that is exactly what has played out. And I don't know how we—in terms of lessons learned, we ought not to get involved in military conflict unless we have a plan to determine what we do with what is left there. That was always, it seems to me, the big