SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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2004
[H.A.S.C. No. 108–44]
THE STATUS OF U.S. FORCES
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
HEARING HELD
NOVEMBER 17, 2004
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, Louisiana1\
TIM RYAN, Ohio
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas2\
Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
Erick R. Sterner, Professional Staff
Justin Bernier, Research Assistant
1\ Mr. Alaxander left the Committee on Aug. 9, 2004.
2\ Mr. Stenholm was assigned to the Committee on Sept. 8, 2004.
C O N T E N T S
HEARING:
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Wednesday, November 17, 2004, The Status of U.S. Forces
APPENDIX:
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2004
THE STATUS OF 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
Clark, Adm. Vernon E., Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy
Hagee, Gen. Michael W., Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps
Jumper, Gen. John P., Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
Schoomaker, Gen. Peter J., Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
APPENDIX
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PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Hagee, Gen. Michael W.
Hunter, Hon. Duncan
Jumper, Gen. John P.
Skelton, Hon. Ike
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. Meehan
Mr. LoBiondo
THE STATUS OF U.S. FORCES
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, November 17, 2004.
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The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.
Our guests this morning are General Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staff, United States Army; Admiral Vernon Clark, Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy; General John P. Jumper, Chief of Staff, United States Air Force; and General Michael W. Hagee, Commandant, United States Marine Corps.
Welcome to the committee, gentlemen. We look forward to your testimony. We appreciate your appearance before the committee today.
In recent days, our Nation has been guided by the dedication and professionalism of our service personnel deployed around the world to fight the Global War on Terrorism. And even as we honor prior generations of service men and women last Veterans Day, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were cleaning out the terrorist rat's nest in the city of Fallujah.
City fighting is hard slogging, but our military stepped up admirably and once again answered the call when the country needed it.
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But as this committee knows, it is not enough to appreciate the military; we also have responsibilities to ensure that our troops are trained, equipped and prepared for the fights we ask them to undertake.
With that in mind, we must continually reassess the needs of our military, both for now and the long term. And we have some concerns in this area.
Because the military is so actively engaged in the Global War on Terrorism, we are in danger of wearing it out. We still have not recovered from the procurement holiday of the last decade, yet the pace of military operations is eating up the lifespan of major equipment, ranging from fighter aircraft to tanks to Humvees.
While the services have developed new organizational and operational concepts and Congress has done a good job of providing funds when requested, the simple fact is that our peacetime budget does not properly take into account the shortened operational lifetimes of major systems.
At the same time, because we are using them more, operating these systems at a higher pace will drive up the cost of maintaining them. Supplemental funding will not entirely fix that problem, since the limited capabilities of our overall industrial base will constrain our ability to repair, reset and reconstitute our combat capabilities.
For example, if we wear out 20 Humvees in a year, but we only have enough mechanics in the country to overhaul 10 of them in a year, then we have a problem.
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All of these factors are going to create a fiscal bow wave in the future that may well threaten some of our major modernization programs. And I know all of you are worried about that.
Second, we need to pay very close attention to the training, readiness and overall well-being of our folks who wear the uniform.
One consequence of a higher operating tempo (OPTEMPO) and increased wear and tear on equipment is that we focus on deployed units at the expense of units in training.
While no one would suggest that our combat units should not be first to receive the best equipment, failure to provide it to units in training means that our soldiers cannot properly train the way they will fight, which is the optimum scenario. And that has always been a key ingredient to their success. And we may put them at increased risk if we fail in this regard.
With that in mind, we must remain committed to our personnel. People are more important than machines and sometimes can wear far more easily.
So far, the retention numbers for Active Forces remain high, in some cases exceeding expectations. But we have not met our targets in some portions of the Reserve and Guard. Retention and recruitment have always been an early indicator that the force may be overstressed, so we need to pay close attention to these numbers.
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So with those issues in mind, gentlemen, thank you very much for your service to our country. And thanks again for appearing before the committee. We are honored to have you here to address both the accomplishments of our military and the stresses it is operating under.
We are going to get to that, but before we do that, let me recognize my partner, the committee's ranking Democrat, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he might want to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thank you again for calling this hearing on this particular subject. I think it is very, very important.
Mr. Chairman, before I begin let me make note that there are a series of Democratic sub-caucus meetings that began at two o'clock, and many of our members will be coming in a bit later, and I wish to point that out, Mr. Chairman, that they will be here as we proceed with this hearing.
The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. I thank the gentleman.
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Mr. SKELTON. Let me join you in welcoming all of our chiefs, General Schoomaker, Admiral Clark, General Jumper, General Hagee, and we thank you for your continuing service.
Please convey to your men and your women our heartfelt pride and appreciation for what they do. They are serving tirelessly, literally, around the world.
You know, every time we hold a hearing, I think back on how much we were asking of those young people in uniform. Each time I think they are strained almost to the breaking point, but they continue to do what they are doing and they do more.
This is a real testament to them. And our finest resource, all of us agree, is the best fighting force in the world, and they are demonstrating that again in Fallujah, Mosul, many other places that we hear about through the news.
During this Global War on Terrorism and the guerrilla war in Iraq, we are fighting extended campaigns with a military designed to fight wars. It is obvious our people are tired and we are wearing out our equipment at a faster rate than we can replace it.
Everything has a breaking point if we push it hard enough, and we must not be complacent about how thin we are stretching the force itself and the equipment.
Active-duty components are currently meeting their recruitment and retention goals, but it has not been easy, I am told. The Army sought a short-term solution to a long-run problem by having to call up the individual ready reserve and bring enlistees into the force earlier than planned.
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They are also reducing recruit quality requirements to make the numbers. Stop-loss, which is a tool to keep people in after their term has expired, is being used widely.
The strain is clear in Reserve Components which are beginning to show real signs of trouble. And you should be with me from time to time to see a spouse from my home district come up to me and talk to me about his or her spouse being extended and saying that this is their last enlistment in the Guard or in the Reserve. Of course, I hope that is untrue.
And I am sure that when they come back from wherever they are, they will feel a great deal of pride in what they have done. But that is some of the spouses that we encounter.
There are these early warning signs, or smoke that could signal a raging fire. We see the smoke. We need to ensure that the force is not consumed by the fire. Additional troops, of course, would help reduce the pressures on this force.
And, yes, more people cost more money, but you cannot sustain a campaign without soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
And by the way, as you know, in the bill that we passed from this committee, we did add some 20,000 additional Army troops, with additional ones hopefully in line for next year.
But we got to be honest with our servicemembers and their families. We should be sure they have the necessary forces to continue to carry out the future and present operations.
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To another serious problem, we are at the breaking point on equipment.
It is a perfectly understandable byproduct of the nature of the campaign. But what is not understandable is our inability to address this issue before it becomes a real bona fide crisis.
If the war were to stop today—assume the war stops today and we are told it will take the Army an additional two years to repair and to refit its forces. But there is no light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq that is going to stop and let us reset our forces. Other services are in roughly the same situation.
This of course requires billions of dollars in funding years after a war ends.
But the cost is not fiscal alone. The situation creates a real window of vulnerability. I will say it again: a real window of vulnerability.
And while we struggle to refit our forces to get ready for the next phase of the campaign or some next unforeseen emergency, we find ourselves in that window.
Well, gentlemen, you should take justifiable great pride in leading the finest-led, best-trained, best-equipped force on the planet.
With a strain of constant deployments, insufficient recapitalization, both those have put us in a situation where it is quite possible our forces will not have what they need, where and when it is needed.
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For example, I sent a letter to General Myers and to you, General Schoomaker, and a copy to our chairman just a few days ago, that a unit deploying soon to Iraq is short over 500 rifles for non-infantry units retraining to perform infantry tasks.
At this point, gentlemen, may I be blunt?
It pains me to acknowledge the limitations of this institution, the United States Congress that I love and serve. But we in the Congress cannot do it without your help. We know how critical your needs are, but we cannot continue to make this case from this dais. We need help from you.
We need your answers as to how we are going to address the issues, not only this year, but for the long-term.
What is your plan for addressing the deficiencies of equipment? How are you planning to budget? What are the tradeoffs that are involved? How do we help?
We must answer these questions regardless of how painful they may be to you, and to put our force in position where the forces cannot only sustain the current, rational commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also ensure that we can meet future threats, and they are out there, to our national security.
You have the support of this committee. Every person on here understands we must meet these challenges, but we must have the straightforward information in order for us to be of help and assistance.
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Mr. Chairman, thanks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
And the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the vice chairman of the committee, has an announcement he would like to make.
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to, for the record, offer the condolences of myself and, I am sure, the members from both sides of the committee at the recent loss of our good friend and former committee member, Tom Foglietta.
Tom was my neighbor in Pennsylvania, served with distinction in this body. He went on to serve as the ambassador for this nation to Italy.
He was a strong supporter of our military, and he used his voice and his vote on this committee, as a member of the minority side, and, when I first came, a member of the majority side, to fight for what was best for our military personnel.
So I know my friends on both sides of the aisle who served with Tom and who knew him would share our feelings that all of us who served with Tom had the pleasure of knowing that he truly was a patriot and a strong leader and a strong supporter of the military and truly reflected the best that this committee has provided to the Congress in support of our troops.
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Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. I know all of us want to join in his sentiments and wish the family the very best.
General Schoomaker, why do we not start with you? And thank you for appearing before the committee.
You have, obviously, a ton of issues in the warfighting theaters and issues here that have been generated by those operations.
So we appreciate your service and being with us today. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF GEN. PETER J. SCHOOMAKER, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. ARMY
General SCHOOMAKER. Well, good afternoon, Chairman Hunter, Congressman Skelton and distinguished members of the committee.
I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today and testify on the tremendous accomplishments of our soldiers and our Army.
On behalf of the soldiers who are serving our country around the world, let me begin by expressing gratitude for the exceptional support that you continue to provide to our soldiers and their families. We could not begin to accomplish what we have without you.
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It is the soldiers, steadfast, well-trained, well-equipped and superbly led, who serve as the ultimate expression of the capabilities our Army provides to the Joint Force and the Nation.
And it is your support that is providing our soldiers with the tools they need to carry on their important and, most often, dangerous work.
As I have said before, there is no question that the pace of our Nation at war challenges our Army. We continue to meet these challenges with the seamless commitment of Active National Guard and Reserve soldiers and our families who continue to give so selflessly to our Nation.
As you all know, we are aggressively reshaping and rebalancing our Army. Rather than focusing on a single, well-defined threat or a geographic region, we are developing a range of complimentary and interdependent capabilities that will enable future joint force commanders to succeed in their missions in both peace and war.
Transforming the Army while fulfilling our global commitments is a complex endeavor. It means we are fighting and conducting extensive stability operations, while simultaneously preparing to deal with other known and unknown situations around the globe, both today and in the future.
It is like tuning a car while the engine is running or, as General Cody, our Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, has said in the past, it is like building an airplane in flight.
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It requires a careful balance between sustaining and enhancing the capabilities of current forces to meet today's commitments, while concurrently transforming to the future force.
With the help of Congress, we have made some huge progress this past year, the kind of progress that in more normal times would have taken decades.
We are reorganizing into a more modular Army. As part of that reorganization, there are three more brigades in the Army than there were last year, and we are building more.
In the process, we have begun converting 11 brigades to modular units of action. Some of those units will deploy to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) III as part of the 3rd Infantry Division.
In 2005, we will add three more brigades for a total of six additional brigades.
By the end of 2006, we will add an additional four.
This will grow our Army by ten brigades in three years, or in the old terms, about three and one-third divisions, along with the necessary combat support and combat service support capabilities.
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In addition, we have grown the Army by about 15,000 soldiers last year, and we will continue to grow to about 30,000 more troops.
This is real growth, exclusive of stop-loss, through increased recruiting and retention.
We also, as you know, canceled the Comanche, which is leading to a revitalization of our Army aviation fleet, and we accelerated the Future Combat System program by spiraling future technologies into today's force.
Each one of these was a big decision, and they each involved dozens of related decisions that were pretty big in their own right.
So we are doing things that in the long term are good for our Army and good for our Nation.
We are acting now to meet the challenges of tomorrow. We are using this time and the momentum and the resources, provided by you and the American people, wisely.
We are working to achieve the Army's overarching strategic goal to remain relevant and ready by providing the joint force with campaign-quality land power and expeditionary capabilities to dominate across the full range of military operations. We must get it right to deal the challenges our Nation will face in the remainder of the 21st century.
We are not losing sight of the fact that it is our soldiers who put it all on the line and our families who are bearing the burden. And we are doing everything in our power to support them.
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Since March of 2003, we have produced in excess of 400,000 sets of body armor. We have gone from making 1,200 sets of body armor a month to over 25,000 sets a month.
Today, not one soldier, sailor, airman or Marine is deployed without body armor into combat.
In the summer of 2003, we had less than 250 up-armored Humvees in OIF. That is when I first testified before this committee. When the combatant commander requested more vehicles to support the ground force commander, we consolidated the up-armored Humvees worldwide and increased production from about 30 armored Humvees a month to over 450. And of course, we had your help doing that.
We have now manufactured over 5,000 up-armored Humvees, chasing a growing requirement in-theater for over 8,000 up-armored Humvees.
So we are talking about, in the last 15 months, we have gone from 250 up-armored Humvees in Iraq to over 5,000; actually it is about 5,600, growing toward about 8,100.
In addition, we are hardening another 12,800 vehicles with add-on armor kits. With your support, we will armor all of the 30,000-plus vehicles that are in-theater today.
As we improve our capabilities through the introduction of technological leaps forward, we must not forget that our technology enhances, but does not replace, the human element of our Army.
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The Army's character and service to the Nation is defined by soldiers who demonstrate daily their commitment, as you pointed out, to live by the ideals contained in the warrior ethos and Army values.
I could not be more proud of our soldiers and the professionalism, courage and confidence that they demonstrate every day.
In closing, I would like to thank this committee for the opportunity to appear before you today and for your continued support for the men and women in our Army deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world.
We recognize that our Army will not succeed without the support of the Congress and the American people. This is a challenge that our entire Nation must embrace—not just our Army, not just our sister services, not just the Department of Defense (DOD).
Today's challenges require the deep and enduring commitment of all of us, including every person in this room today.
Our Nation is asking much of us. I am confident that our Army is and will continue to deliver and do its part for the joint team.
And if I might, I would just like to recognize that yesterday we had confirmed our new Secretary of the Army, Dr. Francis Harvey, and we welcome him on board. His experience, leadership and management experience leading large organizations is going to be a great asset to our Army as he provides leadership for us.
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And I would also like to recognize our Acting Secretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, who over many, many months now, over a year and a half as the Acting Secretary of the Army, has provided us superb leadership and been a great partner as we have faced the challenges before us. And I could not be more proud of my association with both these gentlemen.
And I thank you very much, and I am prepared to answer your questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General Schoomaker.
And let me tell you, I agree, we welcome the Secretary of the Army.
But I also want to add my words of thanks to Les Brownlee, who is a combat soldier and did a superb job serving the legislative process and in acting as Secretary of the Army.
I thank you.
General Clark, welcome. And thank you for your great service over the last many years to our country. The floor is yours.
Admiral Clark, I am sorry.
STATEMENT OF ADM. VERNON E. CLARK, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, U.S. NAVY
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Admiral CLARK. I answer to either one. It is fine with me.
The CHAIRMAN. I almost got General Schoomaker's attention there. [Laughter.]
Admiral CLARK. General Schoomaker said we are really joint over here.
Mr. Chairman and Congressman Skelton, distinguished members, good afternoon. I, too, appreciate the chance to be here today and talk about what is going on on the point and talk to you about the status of our Navy today.
I would like to align myself with the comments of General Schoomaker and talk about our appreciation for where we are today and the things that are going right, specifically support for the manpower and the readiness accounts.
I report to you that the readiness numbers in my Navy are higher than they have ever been since I have been in the Navy, and I joined in 1968. That is because of things that have taken place in this body and in the Congress over the course of the last number of years, all of that enabling our Navy to do what it does day in and day out, in peace and in war and being on the point.
So my report to you is: We are engaged, we are healthy, engaged on the front lines of the Global War on Terrorism.
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And as I appeared before you during the last posture statement season, I reported that the spotlight in Iraq is appropriately on the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps. We are operating some of our people in Iraq in support of them.
We are also spread around the world.
Thirty-four percent of my fleet is forward this afternoon, deployed doing the Nation's business, not only in the Arabian Gulf, but in other parts of the world: four carrier strike groups, an expeditionary strike group; corpsmen, almost 1,400 corpsmen operating with the Marine Corps over there; Seabees; aviators; along with the United States Air Force and Marine Corps, we are overhead, strike fighters providing support to the people on the point; boarding teams; thousands of sorties; over 5,000 interdiction operations conducted in that theater.
I would also report to you that we are healthy. The question and the comments that you raised about recruiting and retention, manpower, current readiness, future readiness—we are moving in the right direction.
In the Active Force, the retention numbers and recruiting numbers are superb.
There are issues in the Reserve Force, to be sure.
And one of the serious issues: our retention has been at levels, the last 3.5 years, that have made it more difficult for us to get the kind of people in the Reserves that—typically the Active Force was a stronger source to our Reserve structure than it is today. It is an issue that we are addressing.
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The 2005 program that is passed by the Congress provides us with a productive shipbuilding year.
For us, unlike each of the other services, my investments are longer-term than theirs are, and I have to get started early to make an impact later.
2005 is a productive year, to be sure.
We are examining the impact of actions that were taken in the fiscal year 2005 bills, which will impact some of our shipbuilding transformation. And those are all things that are in progress.
We are also experimenting with methodologies and approaches that improve our readiness. I have talked to you before about Sea Swap and about the Fleet Response Plan (FRP).
But since I appeared before this committee last time, we have had opportunities to not only continue to test some of these new approaches, but to begin to see feedback on how it will affect our force in the future and allow us to provide more combat capability to the Nation.
Our challenges fall along the lines of resources, to be sure. The $25 billion supplemental, the bridge to bring us into 2005, has been very helpful to us. We received $500 million of that supplemental.
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And certainly discussions are ongoing now about what the requirements will be as we face the issues of 2005.
The most important issues with regard to equipment wear-out I would address to you, Mr. Chairman, are these. And I am discussing with the combatant commanders how to manage the high-demand, low-density resources that we possess.
EA–6Bs are an issue. And they became an issue this last year as we discovered wing cracks. In the last budget we pushed the replacement aircraft, moved it to the left. Accelerating that delivery of the spinoff of the E-and F–18 is a very important part of correcting the problem, as well as ongoing depot activity to fix the wing crack problem.
A longer-term, but at least as important, issue—and it will be with us a while—is the P–3 issue.
Now, the P–3, designed to go hunt submarines in the Cold War, is an airplane that is in as high a demand as any airplane in the inventory, in I believe in any service.
John Jumper and I would have to compare notes to be sure that my statement is accurate.
But I will tell you that my issue is this: The P–3s are flying almost totally in support of the land forces today, because the genius of America is to continue to produce the kind of sensors that the land forces need.
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The issue for us is getting the P–3 to the transition point with the Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA), which the transition to that is represented in the 2005 budget.
We need to get there, and it is something that we have to continue to watch and manage carefully.
The future emphasis for us is this: delivering the right readiness at the right cost.
Delivering readiness at any cost is not something that we are doing in the Navy, and we do not think that is the right way to go for the Nation.
But we do believe that the right readiness to take on the Global War on Terrorism is our challenge, and that is what we are about.
Second: the professional growth of this all-volunteer force that is performing—as each of you have already indicated, their performance has been brilliant, and we must ensure that we continue to make the right investments in them.
And third, accelerating our innovation and investment in Sea Power 21 and our future vision, helping to recapitalize and transform the Navy.
Mr. Chairman, the Global War on Terror is our number-one priority in the United States Navy as we share the front lines with our joint and coalition partners.
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I am pleased to be here to discuss these very important topics, and I look forward to your questions, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Clark, thank you very much.
General Jumper, welcome to the committee. Thank you for your many years of service.
And you have had a lot of difficult issues here over this last several years. How are things going?
STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN P. JUMPER, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. AIR FORCE
General JUMPER. They are going well, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Skelton, distinguished members of the committee, it is a pleasure to join my colleagues here before you today.
May I make a comment, Mr. Chairman? I think that you will not find a group of more joint-minded service chiefs than the group that sits before you here today. It has been my pleasure for almost 3.5 years to work with this group, and I look forward to working with them for the rest of my tenure.
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I also want to add my thanks to the committee for the support.
And in particular, might I say, Mr. Chairman, that I know that an overwhelming majority of this committee has visited overseas. There was one delegation when I was there last week roaming the area of responsibility (AOR) with me.
And I applaud the number of members that have gone over there and put their eyes on the problems that exist, that you outlined at the beginning of this hearing. It means a lot to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to see you all there in person and to be able to talk to you in person.
Sir, last February when I sat before this committee last, we talked about the reconstitution of our air expeditionary forces (AEF) and the fact that we were in the midst of experimenting to see if the AEF concept actually worked. It was the first big test as we went through reconstitution, following major combat operations.
And I can report to you that while we are not able to reconstitute quite as quickly as I thought, with your help, we will be through with all of our major reconstitution by July of next year.
And we have reset most of our major combat forces. We still have 16 bases open over in the AOR and some 30,000 airmen deployed.
Obviously, the stuff that is still in use over there will have to come back, and we will have to address that at the appropriate time in the future.
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But I can report that our ability to pull eight of our ten AEFs forward to engage in major combat operations and then reset those has been a success.
And while many of us held our breath to see if this experiment would work, the fact that we have been able to reorganize ourselves on a rotational base force, take a lesson from the Navy and the Marine Corps, has worked. We are now in a good rotation pattern.
We have reset our deployment time during current operations from 90 days to 120 days. And we have about 80 percent of our force that is on a 120-day rotation. About 20 percent of the force that is in very high demand is longer than that, up to one-year rotations. But we are very pleased with that success.
In addition to that, of course, Operation Noble Eagle, back here in the States, we have flown some 40,000 sorties back home, covering the skies over the United States.
The majority of that, more than 80 percent of the brunt of that, is being shouldered by the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard. They are doing a magnificent job at some 16 locations around the United States, and we could not be more proud of them.
Our total forces also got a big part of the tactical airlift and the total airlift operation supporting current operations overseas.
Our C–130 fleet, a large portion of that is Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, flying many sorties a day in support of ground operations.
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In my recent visit over there, one of my conclusions is that we can still do more. And we come back with a charter to our tactical airlift community to see what we can do even more to bolster up our tactical airlift and reduce some of the pressures on the convoys that are on the road and reduce the casualties that result from those convoy operations.
All in all, our airlift forces, 55 percent of which are Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, have lifted more than 2.8 million tons and over 11 million passengers.
It is remarkable that when we did the swap-out of the Army between phases of the current operation, we swapped out more than 250,000 soldiers in a very short period of time, and quite frankly, nobody noticed. It was a seamless operation, and I am very proud of that.
Our future Total Force will also look at our Air National Guard and our Air Force Reserve and get them into the modern missions that define contingency operations today: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), space, command and control, information warfare.
We will do this with a plan to inaugurate associate units that associates National Guard and Air Force Reserve units with Active units, in there working with them every day to take advantage of the manpower in more efficient ways that exist in our Total Force.
We are enjoying, as Admiral Clark said, excellent results in our recruiting and our retention. As a matter of fact, one of the problems is that our end strength is more than it should be. We will be spending the next year working down to our authorized end strength of 360,000 active duty in our Air Force.
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In order to keep from breaking faith with anybody who wants to stay in the Air Force, we are going to take this mostly out of our initial recruiting. And we have a plan to do that, and I think it is going to work.
I do not want to kick any airman out of the Air Force that wants to stay. They have shown us great loyalty, and I want to return that loyalty to them.
In the future, we are looking, as a joint team, at concepts of operations for joint warfighting and joint warfare.
Even though we are engaged in contingency operations in Iraq, we have seen around the world continued manufacture of highly technical surface-to-air missile systems and highly technical aircraft still being produced, still being delivered around the world.
And we have taken pride in the fact that our F/A–22 program is now emerging from the test phase and into production phase with magnificent results. We will look forward to getting that deployed against future contingencies and joint concepts of operations that require us to go into contested airspace in the future.
We are seeing some of that future now in operations in Iraq. Our unmanned aerial vehicles—as I said, Dr. Roche and I were over there last week and saw unmanned aerial vehicle operations throughout the theater.
There are some 450 unmanned aerial vehicles over there right now. One of the things that we talked to the leadership over there about is better organizing the unmanned aerial vehicles, the many that we do have over there.
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But we have seen great progress in integrating those with our bomber forces and our kinetic forces and even weapons that are carried on the UAVs themselves.
We are doing our part to help Pete in the transformation of the Army with about 2,000 airmen over there doing convoy duty and security forces duty. We are proud to provide those forces, and we are doing our part.
And I must say, I visit our airmen that are doing truck convoy duty, and the Army has trained them very well. They are very proud of that service that they are providing over there right now.
Our future issues, not unlike my colleagues at the table, have to do with our ability to recapitalize.
When I came into the Air Force the average age of our fleet in the Air Force was about eight years. Today that is 23 years, and if we do everything that is in our program, that will grow to 26 years, the average age of our aircraft.
It is not unknown to this committee what those problems are. Even since 9/11, just taking our tanker fleet alone, we have increased the flying time of our tanker fleet by some 33 percent, just since 9/11. We are working ways to try and work that average age down.
We have done this by taking bold steps: reducing the size of the B–1 fleet to take advantage of the spare parts that are available and making the rest of that B–1 fleet digitally compatible and more combat-capable than the rest of that fleet would have been had we kept the old airplanes.
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And we are looking for similar advantages, as aircraft become more capable, to take advantage of that in the future.
As I said, sir, I visited Iraq. I visited many of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines over there, and I will tell you the singular message I bring back from them is: Let us not quit until this mission is done. They believe that.
They are dedicated to the mission that they are engaged in over there, and they want to see this mission through.
So I bring that back to the members of the committee, and I know that you all know that.
Sir, let me make note of the fact that announced yesterday also was the retirement of Dr. Roche as the Secretary of the Air Force. I must say I am very proud to have served with Dr. Roche during his tenure there. I have never seen anyone that cared more about the Nation's airmen than Dr. Roche has, and it has been my pleasure to have served with him.
So, sir, I thank you very much once again for the opportunity to appear before the committee, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Jumper can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you, General. And I share your commendation for Dr. Roche and the hard work that he put into this tenure in a very difficult job. Thank you for your statement.
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General Hagee, you have been right at the tip of the spear here with U.S. Marine forces, along with our Army forces in-theater, particularly over the last several weeks.
And I know that you take every casualty that emanates from the current operation in Fallujah and elsewhere very personally and that you are working hard to do everything that you can to provide more force protection, but also continue to increase the lethality of the United States Marine Corps.
And the Marines and Army personnel that are performing in that very difficult theater over the last several weeks have shown all the guts and competency and courage of the Marines who served at Belleauwood and Guadalcanal and Hue City, where close quarters combat was necessary.
Thank you for being with us today, and the floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF GEN. MICHAEL W. HAGEE, COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General HAGEE. Thank you for those comments, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, other members of this distinguished committee, it is my privilege to report on your Marine Corps and its participation as part of the coalition force in operations in the Global War on Terror.
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Your Marines are an expeditionary force in readiness who fight as an integrated air-ground logistics team within which every Marine is a rifleman.
Nothing can better demonstrate these core principles and their significant capabilities than Marine actions over the last year in Iraq, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa and Haiti, just to name a few.
Congress's sustained public and legislative commitment to Marines and other service members have been indispensable to our morale and our success. And on behalf of all Marines and their families, I thank this committee for your continued support.
However, make no mistake, today we are at war.
We should also not make the mistake of thinking this war will end in a year or two, or that eventual success in Iraq and Afghanistan will be the last battles in our campaign against terror.
We are here today to discuss and answer your questions on the demand on the force. As we do, we must remember, as the Chairman has just pointed out, there is a human cost that cannot be measured in dollars, and it is the sacrifice of our young men and women in uniform.
In the last approximately 10 days, we have lost over 45 Marines killed in action and over 350 wounded, just in Fallujah.
A month ago, we averaged 23 Marines and sailors a day being treated at Bethesda. Today, there are over 100 receiving care there.
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When I talk with these courageous young Americans and their families, they continue to strongly support our actions in the Global War on Terror. They firmly believe that we have an important mission.
They also believe that they are well equipped, well led, well trained, and most importantly, have the backing of the American people.
Like you, I am uplifted every time I talk with them.
As I mentioned, over this past year the Marine Corps has been actively engaged in the Global War on Terror in Afghanistan, Horn of Africa and Iraq.
We have accomplished this while retaining our readiness and flexibility to conduct short-notice operations, like the February deployment to Haiti, within 24 to 36 hours.
Critical to our ability to respond to emergency contingencies is our high level of readiness, our full expeditionary capability and our speed, flexibility and adaptability resulting from our robust training and education systems.
In Afghanistan this past spring, we provided, on short notice, a regimental headquarters, an infantry battalion and a combined arms Marine expeditionary unit. From March until July, this Marine force was a major portion of the combined joint task force so-called spring offensive to help in setting the conditions for the successful election that has greatly advanced the process of establishing a secure and stable government in Afghanistan.
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Since February of this year, the Marine Corps has had the lead for stability and security in the Al Anbar province in Iraq.
As you are aware, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), along with two U.S. Army brigades and five Iraqi infantry battalions, has recently taken control of Fallujah.
This morning the commander of that force, Lieutenant General John Sattler, informed me that, despite the casualties and the very difficult fighting, his force was extremely confident, ready, and the morale was high.
The Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Iraqi security forces have displayed bravery and courage, along with warfighting acumen in conducting this demanding and dangerous operation.
The Marine Corps is performing well because of the outstanding courage, dedication and commitment of the individual Marines, regardless of where they are assigned for duty. They realize the danger to the Nation, their vital role and the magnitude of their responsibilities.
However, the demand on the force has increased exponentially. This demand is especially telling in the strain on our Marines, their families and on our equipment and material stocks.
We are an expeditionary force accustomed to deployments. However, in the past 2 years, we have gone from a deployment rotation of 3 to 1—that is 6 months deployed, 18 months back—to our current ratio of 1 to 1—7 months deployed, 7 months back, 7 months deployed.
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This means that if you are in the operating forces, you are either deployed or getting ready to relieve a unit that is deployed.
We have met our mission requirements with a total force approach.
Since 9/11, we have activated approximately 95 percent of our selective Marine Corps Reserve units, most of whom have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Despite this high operations tempo, the Marine Corps continues to meet its recruiting and retention goals in quantity and in quality.
Although we met these goals last year, the individual recruiter will tell you he or she had to spend a great deal more time with each candidate and his or her parents. We see this trend continuing.
Similarly, our career retention specialists had to spend more time with the individual Marine in order to ensure we met our re-enlistment goals.
We need your help to ensure we maintain a strong advertising budget and selective re-enlistment bonus program.
Morale, dedication and commitment are high. We cannot lose these dedicated young Americans.
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While the details of the fiscal year 2005 supplemental request are still being worked, I can provide some broad indicators.
The demanding wear and tear on material, in addition to combat losses, is a significant concern.
During 3rd Battalion 11th Marines deployment to Iraq this year—incidentally, that is an artillery battalion that we transformed into a provisional security battalion—the commanding officer reported to me that out of the 150 tactical vehicles he had during the 7 months he was there, he drove them over 825,000 miles, conducting over 700 convoy security operations.
This usage equates to over 13 years of wear under normal conditions.
Currently, 30 percent of Marine Corps ground equipment and 25 percent of our aviation equipment is deployed in-theater and experiencing significant use in one of the harshest climates on the planet.
The additional cost to support our combat operations—intermediate and depot-level repairs, combat losses and sustainment—is approximately $8 billion to $10 billion.
These funds will go a long way to sustain the fighting force while recovering from accumulated demands on this force.
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To help ourselves, we have recently, like the Army, completed an extensive review of our force structure and made some important decisions to better prepare us to meet the Global War on Terror and to address rotational stress within the force.
I would also like to especially thank you for the additional forces provided in the fiscal year 2005 authorization bill. We intend to use this increase of 3,000 to man our infantry battalions at 100 percent and address other internal shortfalls.
We are currently assessing whether we will need an additional increase of personnel to meet long-term commitments in the Global War on Terror.
We are working aggressively with DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs on initiatives in support of our Marines and families, particularly to address the long-term needs of our seriously injured Marines.
I can assure you that if we find legislative changes are required, I will report them to you immediately.
Adequate funding without dipping into our base accounts will allow us to continue to improve our force for future challenges and still allow us to continue the process of transformation.
Operations over these past few years, including those we are currently conducting in western Iraq, have dramatically highlighted that our focus on readiness to fight across the spectrum of conflict, our expeditionary mindset and our combined arms philosophy are on the mark.
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The ability to fully fund our modernization and transformation accounts will ensure that these critical capabilities will be ready for the future challenges.
Sea basing through a robust amphibious maritime pre-positioning force of the future, as well as other critical naval capabilities, will greatly increase our national capability to respond.
In conclusion, let me emphasize that Marines fully understand that our greatest contribution to the Nation is our high level of readiness for combat operations across the spectrum of conflict.
We will continue to ensure that our Marines and their equipment, their training and our organization are prepared for any potential contingency, today and in the future.
Marines and their families greatly appreciate Congress's support in achieving our high level of success and your efforts to assist us in sustaining our rich legacy, which inspires Marines and instills a fierce determination to overcome seemingly impossible challenges.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Hagee can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
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And thanks, gentlemen, to all of you for your statements.
And what you have basically laid out for us is, we have a lot of work to do.
So this committee is going to be getting into that job and doing everything that we can to make sure that we reset this force while keeping our eyes on that horizon and future conflicts that may require future capabilities.
You know, I think probably the best place to get into questioning is to go to the base budget that we provided for 2005, along with this $25 billion bridge fund that this committee led with and was followed on by the succeeding committees and by the other body, and we ultimately came up with a $25 billion conference product that was available immediately upon enactment of the appropriations by the President.
Let me ask each of you just this first question: How much of that $25 billion have you received at this point? And what have you done with it?
Looking at that, and now being able to reassess your reset costs, for the remainder of the fiscal year, what do you think you are going to need in additional supplemental appropriations for these categories: operational costs, resetting costs, manpower costs and, for the Army, your continuing modularization costs?
So if you could tell us first about how much of the $25 billion you have received and, beyond that, what you are going to need, I think that is a good starting point.
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General Schoomaker.
General SCHOOMAKER. Yes, sir, thank you.
To answer your first question, the Army has received $15.4 billion of the $25 billion supplemental, the bridge supplemental, that came. And we have in our base budget for 2005 approximately $100 billion.
Now, I think, to really put this into context here, first of all, what General Hagee, the Commandant, talked about there, just to give you a scope of the United States Army, if you are just talking about Iraq alone, I totally subscribe to what the Commandant said in terms of usage.
But you have to think in terms of the fact that the United States Army in Iraq is five times the level of force structure of the United States Marine Corps.
So when I am speaking here, I am talking about quite a large-scale deal.
I would like to go back, because I do not think we can talk about the future without talking about what we have had to do this year, with your help.
The United States Army, since September of 2001 to November this year, spent almost $88 billion to get the force out of the hole that it was in—$88 billion.
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That is about $23 billion in military personnel costs. That is about $60 billion in operation and maintenance costs for OPTEMPO, et cetera, and it is about $5.4 billion in investment costs.
So when we talk about the future, I think we need to instruct ourselves about the past and why we go through these sine waves of support in preparation of the force.
I also think we need to think about the fact that, in fact, right now today, we have three armies. We have an army that was built the way it was for the Cold War; we have an army that is task-organized, troop to task, in the war fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world; and we have an army that we are building for the future.
In many cases there are separate requirements for each of these armies as we go through this transformation.
And while we have opportunity, in this strategic window of opportunity we have, through the transformation, we must understand, like I said in my opening statement, it is like building an airplane in flight.
So what we have given, now to answer your question about the future, in terms of what is required—and I cannot give you a dollar figure, because they are being costed, but I will tell you the magnitude of the things that we have identified.
Right now, we are paying for, on average, 145,000 Reserve Component soldiers that are mobilized.
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So our Army, in fact, is at about 640,000 to 650,000 soldiers on active duty today. We are paying also for 25,000 over strength. And we are paying special pays for about 175,000 soldiers that are deployed in the war.
Units that are preparing, pre-deployment training, because of duty military occupational specialty (MOS) qualification, reclassification and collective training, is increased.
Communications and electronics: 41,600 radios that we need.
Weapons: 33,500 M–4 carbines and 25,000 machine guns.
Tactical wheeled vehicles: 3,700 vehicles of all mix—Humvees, medium tactical vehicles, palletized load systems (PLS), et cetera.
Units returning and restructuring: As the commandant has stated, our unit and depot level maintenance costs are nearly three times the base-level for our depot-level reset costs. And we will need to recapitalize 1,160 track vehicles and 5,437 wheeled vehicles.
Force protection: I mentioned that we have built 400,000-plus sets of body armor, and we need 373,000 sets more this coming year. As well as the RFI, we have issued 180,000 sets of the Rapid Fielding Initiative, the new equipment that soldiers have gone to war with, and we have a need for 131,000 more to be outfitted.
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Vehicles: Armored security vehicles, 828.
Add-on armor kits: 12,500.
Aircraft survivability sets: 20.
And about 3,500 improvised explosive device (IED) electronic countermeasure sets.
So this is just examples of the scope of what it is we are talking about that we will be building and is going to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) that we have said we will need.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Admiral Clark.
Admiral CLARK. As I have reported, I have received, and my share is about half a billion of the $25 billion.
With regard to what the supplemental is going to look like, here are my categories. Some of them I know I can estimate with some degree of clarity what the number is going to be.
For example, we are already projecting what the reserve mobilization will be to support the Army and the Marine Corps, and that will be about $775 million.
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The personnel support costs are going to be $175 million, somewhere in there.
The part I cannot tell you with clarity, that we just do not have worked out yet, is what the operations and support (O&S) costs will be, but that is a major category.
I will have transportation costs somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars, and that is to support my good friend down there on the left end of the table. We cover his transportation costs as you move the Marines in and out of theater.
And then there will be a small number for investment costs, and these are, as General Schoomaker mentioned, aircraft survivability mods, things like antiterrorism/force protection (AT/FP) that are ongoing kinds of new developments.
These kinds of issues will be—I do not know what that number is going to be yet, and we are working on that.
General JUMPER. Mr. Chairman, the Air Force got about $590 million of the $25 billion.
As we look into the future, our current monthly burn rate in the ongoing operation is about $800 million a month.
Like Admiral Clark, as we look out to the future, it is hard to get the exact estimates, and we are still working on the categories of modifications, vehicles, equipment, and our bare base equipment that is being used up at a great rate.
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We have some 14,000 tents out there, set up throughout the AOR, right now, and those will last for about one season before they have to be replaced.
It is categories like that we will have to continue to estimate how much those things will cost.
But as I see it right now, we have $590 million of the $25 billion, and we look at $800 million a month as a current burn rate is what we are seeing.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
General HAGEE. Mr. Chairman, I gave you our estimate in my opening statement there. As the other service chiefs mentioned, that is still being worked, but I think that is a fairly good ballpark figure on what we would need.
We got $1.6 billion out of the bridge. And at our current burn rate, that would take us through early spring next year.
General SCHOOMAKER. Mr. Chairman, if I might.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
General SCHOOMAKER. I failed to mention our burn rate. Our burn rate is $10.4 billion a month for the United States Army—$10.4 billion.
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The CHAIRMAN. Okay.
Okay, thank you, gentleman. Thank you for that answer. I think that is a good starting point here.
Right now, as you are aware, we are in the final stages of negotiation on a fairly sweeping reform of the Nation's intelligence system. And one of the concerns, I think of both houses has been, and the administration, is to create this national intelligence director and at the same time maintain the lifeline, if you will, the intel lifeline between our intelligence apparatus and the warfighter in-theater.
And I do not know if you are familiar with the letter that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dick Myers, sent me on October 21st, which states, ''It is my understanding that the House bill maintains this vital flow of resources through the Secretary of Defense to the combat support agencies,'' meaning the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), National Security Agency (NSA) and Geospatial. ''It is my recommendation that this critical provision be preserved in conference.''
We are still in conference, gentlemen, and that is still one of the primary issues before the conference.
As members of the Joint Chiefs, what are your views on this question? Do you support General Myers's position on this?
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General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, from the Army's perspective, we have had extensive discussions with the Chairman, and I fully support the letter that he wrote you.
Our concern is the support to the combat formations and the protection of those capabilities and our ability to be supported in that regard.
Admiral CLARK. I align myself with the Chairman's letter. I see the issue boiling down to defining the organizational principles that you believe in.
And for me, the principle issue here is the difference between the strategic-level intelligence and tactical-level intelligence.
And my approach—by the way, I believe reform is very much needed. I believe that the idea of moving from need-to-know to need-to-share is exactly the right kind of thinking. We need to do this better.
But we must also not lose focus on this simple, straightforward fact: strategic intelligence provides one level of support for the warfare and tactical-level intelligence provides another, and there needs to be coherency between those two.
It is my view that you cannot have that without having some say-so over the resources that are being spent on intelligence.
General JUMPER. Sir, I could not agree more with my two colleagues. I fully support the letter that General Myers sent.
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And let me just add that we see every day the absolute requirement for the free flow of operational-and tactical-level intelligence that goes to the battlefield every day.
I might point out that many of the resources that are required for strategic-level intelligence are those that have to be able to shift with great agility to the tactical-and operational-level problem at a moment's notice and getting to go from the collect-analyze-report traditions of the intelligence system to the real-time kill chain that is happening in real time.
We are seeing that work now in Iraq, every single day.
So any system that is adapted must be very sensitive to the need for the free flow of tactical-and operational-level intelligence that uses the same assets, in many cases, as the strategic-level programs.
General HAGEE. Sir, I align myself completely with my three joint partners.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
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General Hagee, I am going to ask you a question, actually in two parts, if I may.
And, General Schoomaker, I will ask the same question of you, as it applies to the Army, in just a moment.
General Hagee, as we know, the threat in Iraq continues to evolve. What challenges has the Marine Corps faced as you work to keep pace and transform and adapt to it?
Further, what insights can you provide as you look past Iraq and anticipate other adaptable enemies who are watching what we are doing there and learning about our strengths and about our weaknesses?
General HAGEE. Sir, thank you very much for that very perceptive question.
We probably spend the majority of our time thinking about that.
I would like to talk about two issues: one, when we got ready to go in February and what we are doing right now on this next rotation which is going to occur in March.
As we got ready to put 25,000 Marines into Iraq in February, we worked very closely with the 82nd Airborne Division. They told us what we should be doing. They told us what they would have done differently if they had been on the ground longer and, if they had to come back, how they would have attacked the problem.
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We learned from them. We took their lessons learned, and we integrated it into our training program.
We significantly modified how we train Marines at Twenty-nine Palms, at our Marine air-ground training center out there, to focus it on the current fight.
In addition, we put a lessons-learned team embedded, a lessons-learned team overseas with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. That team reports back almost on a daily basis to our schools, so that we are actually changing the training on the fly so that a battalion, getting ready to go today, is being trained differently than a battalion that we trained just six months ago.
And the reports that we are getting from the commanders in the field is that it is working, that these individuals, these units are arriving better prepared for what they are going to face on the ground.
Now, you asked about how we are going to apply that in the future.
We have a red cell. We are trying to think like the enemy. And as you pointed out, sir, it is an adaptive enemy, a thinking enemy. And we are trying to guess where they are going to go so that we can prepare our Marines for that.
We are doing some things now that we have never done before.
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For example, on the first rotation we took 800 Marines and we sent them to an Arabic language course. Not a long one, four weeks, but at least they had some basic understanding.
We hired scholars in the Islamic religion, and we hired some scholars in the Arabic culture, and we put every single Marine through a series of classes to better understand that culture and those people when they go over there. We had not done that before.
And that is what we are learning from this team that is over there right now. It is being fed back so that we are modifying our training. And then that is going into our doctrine process to see where we need to change the doctrine to better prepare ourselves to fight these sorts of stability and reconstruction-type of operations.
The CHAIRMAN. General, thank you.
General Schoomaker.
General SCHOOMAKER. Yes, sir. The United States Army is doing many of the same things that the Commandant just described.
If you go to our combat training centers today, they are totally different than they were 18 months ago.
We have 500 to 600 civilians on the battlefield now at those places, six and seven villages that are villages that are populated with Arabs in dress, playing the roles of Iraqi police, playing the roles of Iraqi mayors, citizens, the marketplaces, the insurgents and all the rest of it.
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At the National Training Center today we have seven villages built and over 100 miles of tunnel that is built. We have caves that have been constructed. If you squint your eyes, it is not hard to transport yourself very quickly into Iraq.
And we are providing the turnaround time, especially on issues like the adaptation of IEDs, tactics, techniques and procedures that our red cells are developing are being turned into these training centers very, very quickly.
We are populating now our platforms in our schools and in our training base in the basic training and in our Non-commissioned Officer Education System (NCOES) and Officer Education System (OES) systems with combat veterans that are coming back. We are changing the nature of the way education takes place.
Of course, this takes time and we are working very hard on it.
But I think the bottom line is, if you are going to try to fight an adaptive, innovative enemy who is operating as a network with a hierarchy, a bureaucratic hierarchy, that has got all of the tensions and frictions and all of the kind of things within the typical hierarchical structure, it is difficult, if not impossible, to operate that way.
So we are trying to develop a United States Army, just like the Marine Corps, into a learning, adaptive organization full of learning, innovative, adaptive people that understand that we have got to adapt and change faster than the other guy, anticipate what he is doing and be better at what he does than he is, as we go.
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And it goes back to what I said about having, in a sense, three Armies.
We have a piece of the Army that we have not yet moved through the system the way we want; we have a piece that is got a great deal of experience in this business; and we are trying to carry this experience into the future force, not only in terms of the organization, the doctrine and the tactics and the leader development and all of the rest of it, but in the total construct as we take it forward into a much more learning and adaptive force.
So it is a huge challenge. And it goes to the very, very nature of the strategic issue, and that is, what kind of volunteer Army—what kind of volunteer force do we need for the future? How are we going to build it? How are we going to get it? How are we going to sustain it? How are we going to maintain it?
And we cannot let this great force that we have with all this experience slide back into the prior mentalities and shape that we started out this endeavor on.
And I am highly encouraged with your support for the direction that we are going here.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon.
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank each of you for coming in today.
General Hagee, it brought a smile to my face to hear the name of John be brought up, John Sattler, who was in congressional affairs and a great friend to all of ours. And we are not surprised he is doing so well over there. If he could handle Congress, he can handle anyone.
So you give him our best and continue to give him our good blessings.
As you mentioned, each of you, I think almost every one of the committee members have been over to the theater. I do not have any questions, because we can answer those in our ongoing process.
But I just want to comment on the caliber of our troops.
They continue to impress all of us. They are just unbelievable. They are the best America has to offer.
When I was over there on a trip earlier this year and met General Odierno with the 4th Infantry Division up in an area in the northern part of Iraq, he told, with great pride, the success that our Active Duty and Guard and reservists were having in taking one town at a time, and not just repelling the enemy, but showing them how to control their own communities and how to make decisions and what a great job they were doing in showing the Iraqis how democracy really works.
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Well, that is our soldiers.
Unfortunately, he told me the story of a young, 24-year-old West Point grad that had just been killed a month earlier. The amazing part of his story was that when he finished, I asked if the name of that lieutenant was Bernstein. His eyes got real wide. And he said, ''Well, yes, Congressman, it was.''
The reason why it was so amazing is that I was carrying a three-page letter from Bernstein's parents, because I nominated him to West Point. He was a young soldier from my district.
His parents, when they wrote me after his funeral, told me how proud they were of their son. And even though he paid the ultimate price, he did it doing what he loved, and that was serving our country, serving in the Army as a Ranger.
And he died knowing that he was brining to the people of Iraq something that he had in America that he felt so strongly about.
I got the same thing from an e-mail I just got one week before the election.
I want to read this, Mr. Chairman.
Because as I went around my district and around the state, I would always tell parents and grandparents who had loved ones serving overseas, I said, ''Have them e-mail me. Tell me what is really going on.''
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So I got this e-mail from Grandma and Grandpa Swenson about their grandson. They asked him to send back his comments. They are mixed comments, but I think it is worth us listening to because this young Marine corporal I think represents what we need to hear on this committee.
He said, ''What I do and think as a Marine in Iraq consists of a lot of different situations. On a day off, I spend it cleaning my rifle, watching movies or trying to head over to the phone center and calling home or even writing an e-mail or two.
''Most days, you wake up to 110 to 130 degrees of heat hitting us right in the face.
''Living in two-man trailers makes for a lot better living conditions than just a tent, in which I lived in the first month I was here.
''The military provides everything we need to survive, from food and bottled water to the gear that we need to get the job done.
''The only thing I would complain about concerning the equipment is the armor we have for the Humvees. It is very thin, and a mine strike or IED could rip right through the thin armor with ease. I have seen IED strikes and mine strikes firsthand, being a combat engineer. After shipping up to a hit vehicle, it is not a pretty site.
''I know there is better armor out there, because I have seen civilian contractors with vehicles that can withstand a mine strike and keep on going.
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''But besides the armor for the vehicles, I feel very safe knowing my training and the Marine next to me will go to the extreme to make sure I come back safely after every mission.
''Missions change all the time. But the reason we are here in Iraq does not. We are here to win the hearts and minds of the people. Several months working with the locals in the Iraqi national guard, I can see we are winning the battle.
''A mission I went on the other day, we had locals tip us off about an enemy movement, and this information helped us considerably. And the outcome of this information helped our forces and the people in saving lives.''
This young Marine, I think, exemplifies the best that we have in America. He is 21 years old.
We are as concerned as all of you are about the up-armored situation, and we are giving you every dollar we have available to make sure that we give maximum protection to our soldiers and our Marines who are serving over there.
But I just want to tell you in closing, I am proud to be on this committee, because I am proud to support the best that America has to offer. They are doing the job, they are doing it extremely well.
We are here to support you all, regardless of what a White House says, whether it be Democrat or Republican, and we have shown that over the 18 years I have been here. We will be there to support you.
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We will be there because we understand that the Constitution gives us that mandate, to support the men and women who serve in uniform. And that is what we are going to do together.
Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank all four of you gentlemen for being here.
If you do not mind, I am going to cut to the quick.
General Schoomaker, there are 4,500 Mississippians who will be going to Iraq with the 155th early next year. They are training right now at Camp Shelby. They are getting ready to go to the National Training Center.
They were impressed with some of the scenarios that they have had to train at Camp Shelby. But in none of those scenarios did they have either improvised explosive devices or the jammers that will be used.
I am told by a staffer who just returned from the National Training Center that, again, there are no jammers there, nor even prototypes of jammers or mock-ups of jammers.
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From what I can see from several thousand miles away, about half of our casualties continue to be caused by improvised explosive devices.
Now, I am pleased to hear that you have ordered about 3,500 of them. But earlier in your testimony, I thought I heard you say we have 30,000 vehicles in-theater. Quick math tells us that is one in ten. I do not think that is enough.
I say this as a concerned American. I think the Department of Defense is making the same mistake with improvised explosives and the jammers that was made with the body armor early on.
I do not know what it is going to take, but I would certainly hope that you will come back in next year's budget request, or if there is another supplemental, and spend whatever is necessary to protect our troops from something we know is killing American kids.
We spent ten billion dollars this year on national missile defense. We have not lost any Americans to intercontinental ballistic missiles. We lose Americans every day to improvised explosives, General.
And, again, it just frustrates me that I do not sense that the DOD is paying enough attention to this.
So I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
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While I still have a chance to ask my questions, Admiral Clark, I am concerned that there is a persistent rumor in this town, that I hope is not true, that the Navy shipbuilding budget for next year is only going to include four ships and the six billion dollars necessary to build them.
You have said that you thought the ideal fleet should be about 375 ships. Even the defense think tanks are talking about a fleet of at least 310 ships. You are down to about 290.
You are retiring ships now at 20-years-old. So if you are going to have a retirement age of 20 ships and you are only building four a year, we are looking at a fleet, in my lifetime, of less than 100 ships. I do not think that is enough.
So I would hope, when given the opportunity, you would address that.
If I may, General, if I could start with the IEDs.
General SCHOOMAKER. First of all, I was just down at Camp Shelby and saw the 278th that is deploying out of there now. They have been through the mob there, through the Combat Training Center (CTC), back, and they are now departing.
And the 155th is tracing the same steps that they do.
To directly talk about the IEDs: What we are teaching at Camp Shelby and what they will see more of as they go to the Combat Training Center is to start recognizing the signs and the placement and understanding the IED problem.
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The reason we do not have jammers at the National Training Center at Camp Shelby is, we are putting every one of them in-theater, where they are needed.
They do not do us any good. I mean, all it is is a box, and so there is no real learning that takes place by putting a jammer at the Combat Training Center here in the Continental United States (CONUS) when we need them on the vehicles that are over there.
There is also, as I said—the 3,300 jammers that we are asking for are the future, that is on top of the ones that we have already placed in-theater.
This is relatively new technology that we really got onto this year and are building, and we are building them and asking for them in the numbers that are required.
In a convoy, as an example, every vehicle does not have one, because of the nature—and I do not want to discuss it any further here—but in a way they are placed.
We also have other systems that are joint systems, and my joint partner sitting next to me here has some systems that we are also emplacing that are working this very same issue.
So I do not know if that helps you any. But I can just flat tell you that the reason the jammers are not in the training centers here in CONUS is because every one of them—just like having an up-armored Humvee here. It is not saving anybody's life at the——
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Mr. TAYLOR. General, I accept that. But I am told there are not even simulators.
General SCHOOMAKER. There are not any what?
Mr. TAYLOR. There are neither simulators nor—what do these folks train with to be ready to properly use them when they get in-theater?
General SCHOOMAKER. Quite frankly, it is like training with a battery. You turn it on and it sits there. There is nothing else anybody does, except——
Mr. TAYLOR. If I may, General, I thought that one of the things that has to happen is you have to search out and program different spectrum.
General SCHOOMAKER. I do not think we should talk about that here, but——
Mr. TAYLOR. But, again, I would think that is a bit more complicated than turning on a battery, General, with all due respect.
General SCHOOMAKER. Well, I was not trying to be facetious. I was telling you, there is very little interface that is required there, that basically people are told how to set them and they do their thing.
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The reason that we do not have them at the training centers is because we want them saving lives in Iraq.
Mr. TAYLOR. If I could leave you with a parting thought, you cannot, as far as I am concerned, ask for too many of them or too much money. And I would welcome your request to adequately——
General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, I got the message on that, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. General Clark—Admiral Clark, third time.
Admiral CLARK. First of all, I will not be addressing the 2006 submit that has not been approved by the Secretary of Defense or submitted to the President, but we will address it when we come up next year.
I would talk about the numbers.
I mentioned in my brief statement before that the 2005 budget, it is the best budget that we have had in a decade in shipbuilding. And I mentioned that we will be addressing actions taken to see how it is then going to affect the 2006 build.
With regard to numbers, I talked about Sea Swap, but not extensively.
In the open, I have said—and I am on the record—that Sea Swap is influencing our thinking. I have every expectation that if we are able to capitalize on Sea Swap principles, it will affect my 375 number, because we will be able to extract more combat capability out of the investments that we have made.
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I do not know exactly what that number is yet. I expect when I get to visit you next—I will tell you I have got analytical rigor going as hard as I can go to figure this out.
But there are a lot of unanswered questions in the whole Sea Swap experiment. But it is very clear that there is gold to be mined.
So we will continue to reach out to provide the Congress the correct number to invest toward.
And then let me just address briefly the issue of retiring 20-year ships.
I could not agree with you more.
When I got here in this job 4.5 years ago, there was no cruiser modernization program. And we are losing the Block I cruisers, because by the time you get around to investing in them, the cost of investing, there is not enough ship life left to invest in them.
So the budget that we are building addresses guided-missile destroyers (DDG), even though we are still building DDGs—and I need your help to work on this to do this correctly because, frankly, it has not been done correctly.
We cannot build ships and retire them at 20 years. But you are left with that when you do not invest properly in a modernization program.
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So I look forward to working with you on that.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
Let me tell my friend from Mississippi, too, I had a briefing on the jammer situation yesterday—pretty extensive.
I want to make sure that Mr. Simmons shares, Gene, with you, the numbers on production.
But I think that we are working up a proposal that we want to get to the Secretary of Defense and to the Commandant and General Schoomaker about increasing that production, what we think it could go.
So, Mr. Taylor, we would like to have you involved in that. I will have Mr. Simmons give you the up-brief on it and any other members of the committee who are interested in it.
But we think that we can increase the production that we have right now in the current jammer system. So let us work on that if we can after the hearing.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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First, let me thank you gentleman and the men and women that you lead for the fantastic job that has been carried out in the last several years.
This has been a difficult situation. The people that you lead have done a fantastic job for us. Just as everyone here has said, I repeat, and we appreciate that very much.
And when General Schoomaker was responding to someone's question earlier, he talked about the force that we had at the outset of this conflict, the force that we have today and the force that we are going to have for the future.
That brought to mind a question that I have contemplated over and over again, and that is that when we started this process back in 2001, went to Afghanistan and later Iraq, we had a set of strategies, given the unique international nature of this conflict, and we had a set of tactics that we used to carry out the fight.
Given the nature of this fight, given what we have learned during our experience in Iraq and in Afghanistan previously, how have we changed our strategies, and how have we changed our tactics?
We heard a little bit about it from General Hagee and from General Schoomaker in responding to Mr. Skelton's question.
But I am more interested in the big picture about how we viewed this fight when we started, from a strategic point of view and from tactical point of view, and through what we have learned, how has that changed?
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General HAGEE. I will take a first swing at that, sir.
I was the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, just before we got ready to go to war, so I was very involved in the initial planning.
And I can tell you that we focused on the combat part of that. And we did a very good job on that, both the Army and the Marine Corps.
If I had to go back and do it again, I would spend a great deal more time thinking about phase four—in other words, the stability, the security, reconstruction part of that.
Of course, the U.S. military only plays a certain portion of that, more the security portion of that than the other portion of that.
But the integration of all elements of national power during the so-called phase four operations, if I had to do it again, I would put much more emphasis in that particular area so that we were better prepared for that.
General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, I was not here in the early stages of it. But I think the Commandant has hit the nail on the head there. I associate with his remarks there.
I will tell you that we were optimized to do what we did in the major combat operations. And the march to Baghdad is an example of where we were optimized.
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I would say, likewise, the kinds of things that we did in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in the early stages there with our special operating forces and other forces that got involved in that, we were optimized for that as well in that community.
But as we know, this is a war of ideas, it is a test of wills. It has so many more components to it.
Quite frankly, this is a job that is bigger than the Department of Defense. This is an interagency and a coalition job.
I think there are transformational aspects of the entire spectrum, as we think about what our future strategic needs may be, in terms of how we might need to approach them. And it is broader than just the military side.
General JUMPER. Sir, if I just might add, there have been suggestions along the way that in order to bring about this full-scope look at the problems that we faced after major combat operations, calls for an interagency deliberate planning process, much like the deliberate planning process that we have in the military, where formal assignments are made within the interagency to get up-front commitment to what the post-major combat operations requirements will be.
This is something I think where there is some area to, in my personal opinion, make some great progress—interagency, deliberate planning type of process.
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Admiral CLARK. Well, let me just say very briefly—most of it has been covered—but in the tactical round, for example, we have made great progress from lessons learned in close air support kind of operations that we provide with the Air Force in support of the ground forces.
You know, we were good, but we learned things. And we are better now and we are better by far.
Let us talk big strategy.
Since 9/11 in 2001, we created 1–4–2–1 as a sizing strategy. One is to protect the homeland involved in four areas around the crisis hot spots—two quickly defeats or one decisively defeat, a sizing construct.
And then, since then the 10–30–30 construct as our force availability has been put forward.
We are talking about this right now, as we are even in planning for the next round of major strategy discussions in the Quadrennal Defense Review (QDR).
And I will tell you this: It is clear to me that we viewed—and General Schoomaker said this—we viewed major combat operations as the centerpiece of everything that we did. And almost everything that we did was inside of the circle of major combat operations. And if we had to do something lesser, we did it with those kind of forces.
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I am of a growing view that we have to look at where those forces do overlay and should overlay and where they cannot.
What kind of forces do we need to take on the Global War on Terror? Are they forces that are optimized for major combat operations?
What kind of investments do we need to take care of the anti-terrorism, counterterrorism, force protection kind of requirements?
I am convinced that we are learning things at sea that we will continue to fine-tune and in fact alter our investments and potentially our strategy.
General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, could I re-address, real quick?
Big question: What is the corollary of the strategic forces of the past?
In other words, prior to September 2001, we had certain strategic forces that were considered that. And I think a fair question is, what are the strategic forces of the future? Are they the same ones, or are they different?
I do not have the answer for that, but I think it is a question we need to answer: What will be the strategic force composition of the future? I am talking about strategic forces now.
Tactically, we can do it.
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In Fallujah, under the United States Marine Corps, under the MEF, we had forces out of the 1st Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division that fought under the leadership of the Marine Corps, supported by Marine, Navy and Air Force air, to include UAVs. And they did it superbly, seamlessly.
We know how to do that.
The young folks that we have today and the people that are leading understand how to kludge those things together. They are very agile, they are very adaptive and they know how to do that.
But the bigger issue is: Are we that agile and adaptive at the strategic level, and are we going to make the strategic investment in the right kind of strategic forces for the 21st century?
That is the big question. I would suggest that it may not be the same as we looked over the last several decades.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, if I may just ask General Hagee, what is the U.S. Marine Corps burn rate per month?
General HAGEE. Right now our burn rate is about $300 million a month, sir. That is for OIF-OEF.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, thank you for being here. As I told you before the hearing, we appreciate all of your work and certainly want you to convey our pride to our men and women serving us so admirably around the globe.
General Hagee, you mentioned the burn rate. What is the total burn rate for the Marine Corps per month?
Because I think, General Schoomaker, in your comments, it was $10.4 billion for the whole Army. Am I correct?
General SCHOOMAKER. It was $10.4 billion for the war. That is just OPTEMPO costs, personnel costs.
Mr. REYES. Just for OIF?
General SCHOOMAKER. OIF-OEF.
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Mr. REYES. Okay, thank you.
Can both of you give us the whole burn rate for the whole Marine Corps operation and for the whole Army operation, per month?
General HAGEE. Yes, sir. We will provide that to you, sir.
Mr. REYES. The other area that I wanted to address, I recently had an opportunity to talk to a couple of soldiers that are convalescing in San Antonio that had been hurt in Afghanistan.
Especially for you, General Schoomaker, I am going to put a series of questions for the record that I will provide for you, because I want to cover some other things that I heard in you gentlemens' testimony here.
We learned, when we were looking at the report on Abu Ghraib, that General Sanchez had in fact asked for additional troops, because they did not have enough troops for force protection and facility protection in Abu Ghraib, and that was one of the huge issues that they had.
Can we be assured, as a committee, that if a ground commander today in Iraq or Afghanistan asks for additional troops that they will not be told that no more troops can be provided and not to ask for any more troops? Because that was the testimony we heard here as it regarded to Abu Ghraib.
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Can we have that assurance from you gentlemen?
General SCHOOMAKER. Well, I can speak for the Army.
To date, to the best of my knowledge, we have never failed to provide the troops that have been asked for.
Mr. REYES. The reason I am asking this question is because in the report it is clear that there was a request for additional troops, because no more additional troops could be provided to Abu Ghraib. The answer was no, and then they were told not to ask for more.
For me that is an issue, because if they need more troops, they ought to get them.
General SCHOOMAKER. Well, I understand your question.
But I think we would all agree—and everybody could speak to this.
But the process is such that when a commander in-theater asks for troops, he does it to—in this case General Abizaid. General Abizaid's request comes forward to the Joint Staff and that is adjudicated. And it goes through the joint forces process, and then we are told what it is that we should provide.
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I do not know of an instance where we have been asked to provide something that we have failed to provide.
Now, I cannot speak to all of the rest of that chain, because we do not have visibility of that. But that is the way the system works. And I do not know of——
Mr. REYES. Excuse me, General.
Maybe what I ought to ask for the assurances that you will send it down the chain of command, that attempts to get more troops into theater as needed should not be stopped or thwarted in any manner, way or shape, because I think it is important.
We should have that kind of assurance, that if troops are needed, more troops should be provided.
So if I can get your assurances, that would be fine.
General SCHOOMAKER. Well, you have my assurance that I am committed to providing the troops that are requested, but I cannot promise more than I have got.
Mr. REYES. True, I understand.
General Hagee, as well?
A couple of other areas.
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General Jumper talked about 55 percent of the Reserve is in-theater that is providing the airlift. General Hagee talks about the one-to-one deployment ratio that we are in today.
I have asked before for the Army to consider the six-months rotation, like the Marine Corps is doing.
Because that is a huge issue. As I talk to soldiers, they are wondering why they have to spend 12 months in-theater and Marines spend 6 months and get transferred out.
General SCHOOMAKER. If I could address that, and you will see that every one of the services here has different rotation policies.
I said earlier that if you take a look at the Army's contribution, just in Iraq alone, for every battalion of Marines you are talking about, there are five battalions of Army, plus all of the Army service support that we provide to everybody that is in-theater, plus all of that logistics business, all of the stuff that comes out there.
So between April and the 15th of June, in a 75-day period this year, we churned out 244,000 soldiers that went in and out of theater.
If we had been on six-month rotations, we would have had to rotate a half a million soldiers during that period.
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If you take a look at the magnitude of that and the amount of turbulence and the lack of continuity and the disengagement from all of the contacts that we have got in Iraq at that level of thing, it is just absolutely impractical.
So what we are committed to and what we are working are shorter tour rotations.
But it is going to be dependent upon the conditions being met of Iraqi forces being generated to take more of the stress off and reducing the overall requirement for Army forces in-theater. Otherwise it would be horribly disruptive and counterproductive to go to that.
And we are as concerned as everybody about these tour lengths.
Of course, the last thing I would like to say is, we are trying to increase, as I mentioned in my opening statement, the amount of deployable units that we are constructing with in the Army. And that is why we are slowly moving off the one-for-one rotation time issue.
As we build this Army broader at the base and have more deployable units, it will help significantly to give us more depth in our rotation base.
So it is a complex issue.
I have said in the past, like a Rubik's Cube, you know, you move one little thing, all of a sudden you see there are three or four other issues there.
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Mr. REYES. Thank you, General.
Mr. Chairman, I noticed that my time is up, but if General Hagee can comment on one last point, and that is, can we abandon that plan about embedded reporters?
War is hell. We should not be subjecting, in view of the events of the last few days. I think that is one of the reasons why National Football League (NFL) players do not have mikes on their uniforms. We know everything else about football, because we do not want to hear what is going on on the field.
I do not think it is a good idea to have embedded reporters in combat to the extent that we have them, and I hope we abandon that.
Not that we want to keep anything secret, but having had the experience of combat, it is an ugly situation.
People get into different kinds of situations. We should not be providing Al Jazeera with the kind of propaganda that they have had the last couple, three days.
General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, could I correct the record very quickly.
You asked a question on burn rate. The Army's total burn rate is $10.4 billion per month. For OIF-OEF it is $4.7 billion a month. So I have misstated—I misquoted.
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Mr. REYES. That is what I understood you to say the first time. That is why I asked that question.
Thank you.
Could you comment on that one last point?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General HAGEE. Would you like me to comment on that now, sir, or for the record?
The CHAIRMAN. You are at total license to comment right now, General.
General HAGEE. I would be happy to comment.
I understand the concern about embedded reporters. Obviously, I know the incident you are talking about.
But, sir, in my personal opinion, embedded reporters have actually worked very well. They inform the American public about what these great, young Americans are doing over there. And the large, large majority are doing, as the members here have already articulated, a tremendous job. And the American press is an important part of getting that information out.
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So I personally, Mike Hagee, would not want to do away with something that is working very well.
I would like to focus on the part that we might be able to do better and correct that, rather than doing away with the entire embedded reporting process.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlem