[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H4168-H4169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         MILITARY PREPAREDNESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I have here in my hands a Marine ammo pouch. 
This is the type of a pouch that the Marine Corps infantryman uses to 
put his M-16 rounds of 5.56 millimeter rounds in for combat operations. 
This empty Marine ammo pouch represents yet another symbol, really, of 
the Clinton Defense budget coming apart at the seams.
  Pursuant to conversations and briefings that we had with the Marine 
Corps and other services, when I asked as the chairman of the 
Procurement Subcommittee on National Security if they had enough 
ammunition to fight two regional conflicts, which is what we want our 
Marines and our Army to be able to fight, the Marines said candidly, 
no, Congressman, we do not. And we said, well, how short are you of 
ammunition? And they sent over a list of the ammunition that they were 
short; included in it is $30 million in basic M-16 bullets. That is 96 
million bullets that the Marine Corps infantrymen are short, should 
they have to fight two regional conflicts.
  That means if we got into a fight in the Persian Gulf, like the one 
we had with Saddam Hussein, and then at the same time, we saw the North 
Koreans moving down the Korean Peninsula and we had to stop them with 
Marines, with soft bodies, those Marines would not have enough 
ammunition to do their job and protect themselves because this 
administration has come up millions of dollars short in ammunition.
  Now, last week we had a hearing on safety, aviation safety, after the 
F-14s crashed. We had three F-14 crashes before the hearing, one right 
after the hearing. At the same time, we had three of the Harrier jump 
jets, those are vertical takeoff jets, that the Marines use. And the 
Marine aviation leaders told us that the Clinton administration does 
not intend to make the safety upgrades to 24 of those Marine Harrier 
jump jets. They further told us that those safety upgrades that they 
make the aircraft 40 percent safer for the pilot flying it.
  Now, when you consider that about 30 percent of our Harrier jump jets 
have crashed, that is a pretty big safety margin and a penny-wise and 
pound-foolish move for the Clinton administration to make, to cut 
safety upgrade money out of the budget. But this is a result of these 
massive defense cuts that the Clinton administration is administering 
to the men and women who serve in the Armed Services.

[[Page H4169]]

  Well, once again the cavalry is coming to the rescue and under the 
leadership of the gentleman from South Carolina, Floyd Spence, the 
chairman of the Committee on National Security, we have put in today in 
the procurement markup enough money for every one of those 93 million 
bullets that the Marine Corps is short under the Clinton 
administration's budget.
  We have also put into the budget today enough money to make every one 
of those 24 upgrades, safety upgrades, for the Harrier jump jets so our 
Marine pilots will be able to fly them in a condition which is 50 
percent safer than the condition the Clinton administration would have 
them flying in.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, this is very, very disturbing, 
because we have been led to believe, I and all my colleagues, have been 
led to believe that our military preparedness is adequate for almost 
any eventuality.
  We have been to Somalia, we are now in Bosnia, we have 20, 25, 30,000 
troops over there, we have aircraft carriers over there, and the 
gentleman is saying that we are short on bullets as well as other areas 
of preparedness? That is very distressing.
  Mr. HUNTER. I am telling my friend the story gets worse. We are $30 
million short on basic bullets, that is M-16 ammo for the riflemen. 
Total, we are about $365 million short on ammunition, if we count the 
mortar rounds we are short, the howitzer rounds and all the other types 
of ammunition that go into a Marine amphibious force.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, the reason this is very distressing to me is President Carter 
had the same kind of policy that the gentleman is talking about during 
his administration, and when Ronald Reagan came in, we had seen 10 or 
11 countries go Communist because, first of all, we did not have that 
determination to deal with them; and, second, we were not militarily 
prepared. And if we are not militarily prepared, we are going to have 
problems with some of these terrorist states: Iran, Iraq and some of 
these others, Libya, that are trying to get nuclear weaponry and 
delivery systems now.
  So I think it needs to be made very clear to everybody that is paying 
attention, all of our colleagues, that without military preparedness we 
could have all kinds of problems like we had back in the early 1980's 
because we were not prepared.
  I remember back then when I came to Congress we had people in 
training exercises that were using dummy shells in order to prepare. 
And that is something we cannot tolerate.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct, but the 
Republicans are coming to the rescue and we are going to have enough 
ammo for those Marines to be fully equipped in wartime, and a lot of 
other equipment.

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