[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 54 (Tuesday, May 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2782-H2791]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H2782]]
            DISCUSSION OF ISSUES AFFECTING NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to take out this 60-
minute special order as we today completed in the Committee on National 
Security the markup of the 1999 defense authorization bill, the 
authorization bill that lays out the funding framework for defense 
spending for the next fiscal year. I will be joined tonight by many of 
the most distinguished Members of this body as we discuss issues 
affecting national security in this country and the difficult problem 
that we are facing. The people of America unfortunately have a 
misconception. That misconception is in fact that we are spending so 
much more money today on defense than we have in the past.
  Mr. Speaker, just a couple of simple comparisons, if we compare today 
defense spending to what it was in the 1960s. I pick that time because 
we were at relative peace. It was after Korea and before Vietnam. John 
Kennedy was the President. In the 1960s we were spending each year 52 
cents of every Federal tax dollar brought to Washington on national 
defense, 9 percent of our country's gross national product. In this 
year's defense bill, we are spending 15 cents of the Federal tax dollar 
on national security, 2.9 percent of our gross national product. In 
fact, the defense budget is the only area of spending that the White 
House and the Congress have cut for 13 consecutive years, cut in very 
dramatic ways. Those have been bipartisan cuts, some of which I have 
supported, some of which I have concerns with. But while the defense 
spending in this country has gone down in terms of overall spending 
authority at the Federal level, we must understand some very important 
facts, Mr. Speaker.
  In the 1960s, we had a draft. Young people were taken out of high 
school. They served their country for 2 years. They were paid far less 
than the minimum wage. Today we have an all-volunteer military. No one 
is drafted. Our young people are well-paid, many are married, they have 
advanced college degrees, we have housing costs, education costs, 
health care costs. So quality of life becomes a major part of what we 
spend our defense dollar on. So today, Mr. Speaker, a much larger 
portion of that relatively smaller amount of money compared to the 
1960s goes for the quality of life of our troops.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, the fastest growing part of defense 
spending today is environmental mitigation. We are spending $12 billion 
this year to clean up both nuclear materials as well as materials that 
are nonnuclear. That is all coming out of our defense budget. On top of 
all of that, Mr. Speaker, deployments of our troops in this decade are 
at an all-time high. In fact, in the past 6 and 7 years we have 
deployed our troops 25 times at home and abroad. That compares to the 
previous 40 years where our troops were only deployed a total of 10 
times. None of those 25 deployments in this decade, Mr. Speaker, were 
budgeted for. None of them were planned for. So the cost of all those 
deployments has had to be eaten out of our defense budget, further 
cutting the available dollars that we have to modernize, to put into 
new technology.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of Defense has given us a number 
of $15 billion in contingency costs that we have taken out of DOD 
spending in the past 6 years to pay for those deployments around the 
world. Bosnia alone by the end of the next fiscal year will have cost 
us $9.42 billion. All of that money has come out of the defense budget.
  Because of all of those reasons, Mr. Speaker, we are facing a crisis, 
a crisis in being able to provide the kinds of equipment, readiness and 
support that our troops need to do the job on behalf of this country. 
Tonight I invite our colleagues to join with me as we dedicate the next 
hour to focusing on these difficult issues of how we spend our defense 
dollar.
  To start off that discussion, I would like to yield at this time to 
the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee on National Security, who is in fact a leader 
working in a bipartisan way with our colleagues on the other side and 
has been a tireless advocate for the defense needs of this country.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon) indicated, as chairman of the Committee on National Security, 
that committee charged under the Constitution with providing our 
country with the proper defense, I feel duty bound to report to the 
Congress and to the American people the status of our national 
security.
  Tonight, and in other sessions to follow, some of my colleagues and 
myself, members of the Committee on National Security, in a bipartisan 
manner, will endeavor to call attention to the various threats 
confronting our country and our ability to defend against these 
threats.
  Mr. Speaker, I have served in Congress for 28 years. I have seen 
Presidents, Secretaries of Defense, Chairmen of Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
Senators, and Congressmen come and go. I have seen hot wars, cold wars, 
contingency operations, budget wars, a hollow military, buildups and 
builddowns, I have seen all of it. But despite all of this and despite 
the end of the Cold War, I have never been more concerned about the 
national security of our country than I am tonight.
  I realize that is a strange statement to make, since we are no longer 
at war. But during the Cold War, the threat was obvious to people. You 
could see the threat. But since the end of the Cold War, people are 
unaware of the many serious threats and how unprepared we are to deal 
with them properly. Many people ask in this day and time, where is the 
threat? They say the threat is not imminent.
  My answer would be to look at today's papers. Look around you. Take 
your pick. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, China, North Korea, Russia in 
turmoil, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism. Take your pick. It is like 
the former Director of the CIA said, with the end of the Cold War, it 
is like we have slain a dragon and found the jungles filled with very 
poisonous snakes of various kinds.
  Let me list a few of them for you. ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic 
missiles with nuclear warheads. Any country which possesses these 
weapons is a threat to our security. Even though we have an ABM treaty 
with the Soviet Union, that country does not exist any longer. That is 
no defense against ICBMs from Russia. What if we had just an accidental 
launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile? Even if one were 
launched against this country, contrary to what most people think, we 
could not defend against that one missile coming into this country 
killing literally millions upon millions of people, and we are 
defenseless. You are defenseless against that one accidentally launched 
missile.

                              {time}  1915

  How about China? China has ICBMs targeted on us. We do not have any 
ABM treaty with China.
  You have not got to be a superpower in this day and time to wage the 
horrors of mass destruction warfare on the rest of the world. You can 
be a rogue Nation or a terrorist group for that matter; you can put 
together weapons of mass destruction in laboratories in low-tech, 
inexpensive ways; you can marry them up with cruise missiles which can 
be bought across borders; you can launch these cruise missiles from 
various platforms of various kinds at least, extending the range of 
these types of missiles to bring everyone within the range of these 
weapons of mass destruction carried by cruise missiles.
  We also have shorter-range ballistic missiles, and we do not have an 
effective theater missile defense to defend against these types of 
missiles.
  One of the most hideous kinds of weapons of mass destruction I can 
conceive of is something called anthrax, a bag of which can be released 
in the winds over, say, Washington, D.C., killing hundreds of thousands 
of people before we can inoculate, and we have no defense against that 
terrible thing. Can you visualize trying to defend against that type of 
a weapon?
  And we have something called, our scientists are concerned about, 
something called the EMP effect, electromagnetic pulse effect. If a 
terrorist

[[Page H2783]]

group or someone were to destroy, were to detonate a nuclear weapon up 
above the United States, without killing anyone, it could shut down all 
the electrical systems that are not hardened in the United States. Can 
you imagine what that would do to all of our systems, electronics and 
defense systems, automobiles even, and all the rest if everything was 
shut down and we were defenseless from that explosion, without killing 
anyone?
  All these threats exist today and many more, too. These threats are 
right here today, tonight. And we do not have the defense, a proper 
defense against these things as we stand here talking about it.
  Why?
  Because we have made the same mistakes we have made after every war. 
We cut back too much, too fast, too deep, and we have done to our 
military what no foreign power has been able to do before.
  Many American lives were lost in World War II because we had allowed 
our forces to be cut back so much after World War I. And then after 
World War II, we destroyed and cut back the biggest and best military 
the world has ever known. In a few short years, no intelligence agency 
ever predicted something called Korea, and again we were unprotected. I 
call these things that are happening the ``end between'' war syndrome, 
and we are going through that right now.
  Mr. Speaker, allow me to list a few facts to bear out what I am 
talking about. As Mr. Weldon said, the administration's request for the 
fiscal year 1999 defense budget represents the 14th consecutive year of 
real decline in defense spending. Also, defense spending under the 
balanced budget agreement falls more than $54 billion short over the 
next 5 years of keeping pace even with record low inflation.
  Again, today's military forces are 32 percent smaller than 10 years 
ago. In the past decade alone, we have closed over 900 bases around the 
world and about 97 bases here in this country at home. Our aircraft are 
being cannibalized. The Army, which conducted 10 operational events 
outside of normal training and alliance commitments during the 31-year 
period of 1960 to 1991, has conducted 26 operational events in 7 years 
since 1991. The Marine Corps, which undertook 15 continuous operations 
between 1982 and 1989, has conducted 62 since the fall of the Berlin 
Wall. Training and readiness accounts are being readied to pay for 
these contingency operations, the smaller forces being asked to do more 
with less.
  And one very telling item, I think: Still, after all the cutbacks we 
have experienced and the identified readiness shortfalls that we have, 
our national military strategy provides that we are supposed to be able 
to fight two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies at the 
same time, or near the same time, something like an Iran or Iraq and a 
North Korea. Many people believe we do not have the force now, since we 
have cut back so much just since Desert Storm, to even do one of those 
major regional contingencies.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, in today's edition of the European Stars and 
Stripes, there was an article entitled ``Cohen Takes Aim At Readiness, 
Leaders Fear Return to the Hollow Force,'' and in it General Wesley 
Clark, who heads the United States European Command and is in charge of 
our troops in Bosnia, was quoted as saying back-to-back peacekeeping or 
humanitarian operations like the kind we have experienced since 1994 
hinder the ability of combat units to maintain their readiness for 
high-intensity operations.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to include in the Record the text of the 
entire article I was pointing out:

            [From the European Stars & Stripes, May 5, 1998]

 Cohen Takes Aim at Readiness--Leaders Fear Return to Hollow Force Days

                          (By Jon R. Anderson)

       Washington.--Defense Secretary William Cohen is gathering 
     his top brass over concerns about dwindling readiness.
       On April 23, Cohen started what will become a series of 
     meetings on readiness issues with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. 
     Henry H. Shelton, along with the four service chiefs and a 
     handful of other senior leaders.
       One senior Pentagon official said the ``tank sessions,'' as 
     such high-level gatherings are called, are designed to 
     address Cohen's concerns that readiness reporting is not as 
     accurate or predictive as it needs to be.
       ``There's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that 
     readiness is slipping. What the secretary is trying to do is 
     get to the bottom of it all and see if we really have a 
     problem,'' the official said.
       The look at readiness began as Congress considered a 
     supplemental budget bill designed to cover $2 billion in 
     unexpected costs for operations in the Middle East and Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina. Congress passed the bill and President 
     Clinton signed it amid warnings from Pentagon officials that 
     training and all nonessential operations would grind to a 
     virtual standstill without the funding.
       But it's no secret things are already tight throughout all 
     corners of the military.
       Defense spending is at its lowest level in recent memory, 
     and while forces have been cut considerably, much of the 
     remaining funds have been fenced for weapons modernization 
     efforts. That means little is left over for things like 
     training and maintenance.
       Everyone from top regional commanders to pilots, platoon 
     leaders and ship drivers out at sea are raising the specter 
     of a return to the hollow force days of the 1970s. Indeed, 
     stories in the press and reports within the military itself 
     suggest cracks are already beginning to show.
       A March 20 report from the General Accounting Office, 
     the investigative arm of Congress, said that half of the 
     Army's 10 divisions were suffering from significant 
     manpower shortages.
       In 1st Armored Division's 1st Brigade, for example, only 16 
     out of 116 tanks had full crews and were qualified for 
     combat, the GAO reported. In 1st Infantry Division, two 
     brigades were short almost half of the infantrymen needed to 
     man Bradley fighting vehicles.
       During the latest flair in tensions with Iraq, ships 
     deploying to the Persian Gulf were struggling with manpower 
     shortages of their own. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier 
     George Washington, for example, which is supposed to be 
     manned by as many 6,000 sailors, was staffed with only 4,500. 
     That's 1,000 fewer than it had on its last cruise to the 
     region just two years ago.
       All four services are having trouble keeping their aviators 
     from leaving. Despite bonus increases and other incentives, 
     pilots still are leaving in droves.
       ``The lessons learned about a hollow military after World 
     War I, World War II, the Korean conflict and Vietnam must not 
     be ignored now,'' the head of the U.S. European Command, Gen. 
     Wesley K. Clark, told the Senate on March 3.
       Funding shortfalls, for example, have caused ``significant 
     shortages'' in spare parts for the F-15E squadrons in Europe, 
     he said. So much, in fact, that the ``get-well date is not 
     until May of 1999.''
       Clark also warned Congress that ``back-to-back peacekeeping 
     or humanitarian operations of the kind we have experienced 
     since 1994 hinder the ability of combat units to maintain 
     their readiness for high-intensity combat operations.''
       The Pentagon is trying to gauge the severity of the 
     problem.
       ``We're trying to find out what our threshold of pain is. 
     And make sure we're not anesthetized to it,'' said another 
     top official privy to the content of Cohen's meetings.
       At the same time, he said, there is a sense that perhaps 
     some of the military's top leadership may be reluctant to be 
     forthcoming with bad news on readiness.
       ``No one wants to look like the kid who cried wolf. It's a 
     matter of what point do you say `I'm concerned' without 
     appearing like you're maneuvering for additional resources.''
       Another problem, he added, was that ``military people are 
     can-do people--they'll make do with what they've got and do 
     whatever it takes to get the job done.''
       That attitude, he said, is both a virtue and an Achilles' 
     heel. ``It really is a strength, but on the other hand, if 
     you don't fix what might just be a small problem early 
     enough, it will just become a real big problem later on.''
       In that vein, Cohen and Shelton want to see if better 
     management tools can be put in place to provide top 
     commanders with a way to gauge readiness issues before they 
     become a problem.
       Currently, the Defense Department uses two systems to 
     monitor readiness.
       The Joint Monthly Readiness Review, or ``Jammer'' in 
     military-speak, is designed to assess how actual forces on 
     the ground in the various regional commands would be 
     distributed if two wars were to break out in different parts 
     of the world. The scenarios alternate each month between a 
     clash with Iraq starting first, followed shortly by combat in 
     Korea, or the reverse, with Korea flaring up first.
       The second readiness gauge is the Status of Readiness and 
     Training System, also called SORTS, which tracks how 
     individual units are manned, how much maintenance needs to be 
     done on vehicles and gear, and how training is going.
       While both systems provide a good ``here and now'' 
     perspective, they lack the ability to identify trends.
       ``There is some frustration that Jammer and SORTS don't 
     give us everything we need,'' said Navy Capt. Steve 
     Petrepaoli, spokesman for Shelton. ``What we want is a way to 
     identify problems before they happen.''
       For example, he said, Jammer ``captured the problems with 
     pilot and infantry shortages, but we got it as it was 
     happening, not ahead of the curve.''

[[Page H2784]]

       Officials say the biggest problem has been managing the 
     readiness levels in units that are not on the first-to-fight 
     roster.
       War plans call for some units to be ready to fight at a 
     moment's notice. Those are mostly forward-deployed forces and 
     units in the United States on call for rapid deployment. It's 
     those units that have priority for manning along with 
     training and maintenance funds.

  Mr. Speaker, we have already instituted many reforms designed to save 
funds to allow us to do the things we need to do to have the world's 
best military and properly defend this country. On broad defense 
reforms, the national security and this Houses's track record speaks 
for itself. The committee has pursued forms of various kinds on 
multiple fronts. We have instituted acquisition reforms, including 
acquisition work force reductions. We have instituted support services 
reforms. We have privatized nonessential military jobs, and last year 
the House passed a Defense Reform Act with 400 votes.
  In spite of all these things and against a backdrop of 14 consecutive 
years of real decline on the defense spending, and confronted with 
billions of dollars in readiness, quality of life, and modernization 
shortfalls, we need to do more things. Therefore, in the context of the 
first Federal budget with a surplus in 3 decades, and also in view of 
today's strong economy, I am calling on the powers that be, the 
leadership on both sides of the aisle, the President, to renegotiate 
the defense caps put on defense on the balanced budget agreement.
  We have to provide for the common defense. That is our government's 
first and most important responsibility. We stand ready to work with 
anyone to ensure that America maintains the military befitting our 
Nation's superpower status.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to close with a passage from scripture; 
this means a lot to me. We have heard before the quote from Isaiah that 
calls upon people to beat your swords into plow shares and your spears 
into pruning hooks. But in Joel 3:9 we hear these words: Wake up the 
mighty men, beat your plow shares into swords and your pruning hooks 
into spears.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Thank you very much for that eloquent 
statement and for your tireless leadership on behalf of the men and 
women who serve this country. We deeply appreciate that.
  Mr. Speaker, continuing on with this special order, national security 
has been a bipartisan issue in this body, and we have had many 
outstanding Members from the other side who have been key leaders in 
our efforts to provide additional resources for the security of our 
country and for the support of our men and women.
  In fact, over the past 3 years in a bipartisan effort, we have 
plused-up funding over the President's request for defense by $10 
billion, $6 billion, and $9 billion respectively, and one of those 
champions from the other side who has been at the forefront 
consistently on these issues and continues that role today as the 
ranking member of the House Committee on National Security is our good 
friend, our colleague, and a great American, Ike Skelton. Congressman, 
I yield to you.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend and my colleague 
from Pennsylvania taking out this special order, for in my opinion it 
is one of the most important special orders in which we will 
participate. So I compliment the gentleman for his foresight in doing 
this.
  Mr. Speaker, in your eye, come with me this past January and 
helicopter with me with three other Members of Congress from the base 
camp near Skopje, Macedonia, out to one of the far outposts of 
Americans keeping watch to see that the potential enemies or potential 
encroachers will not come into that sad and unhappy country. And come 
with me as we shake hands with those soldiers after they do their 
formal inspection of arms for me as the chairman of the small 
delegation, and stand there while I talk to this young Springfield, 
Missouri, soldier on what he is doing; see the pride in his eyes; talk 
to him about how well he likes what he is doing, how he enjoys the Army 
and the challenges. And yet he is thinking of the folks back home and 
his family. He is there for 6 months, it is going to be a long 6 months 
for him, but yet he is doing what he intended to do when he joined the 
Army.
  Now a few months earlier, come with me, Mr. Speaker, and see a United 
States aircraft carrier as it prepares to leave for 6 months in the 
Mediterranean, in the Adriatic, then the Persian Gulf. See those 
families, those young sailors, men and women, climbing aboard that 
aircraft carrier giving that 3-year-old son a hug. See them wave as the 
ship is towed out into the harbor by those tugs, and know that those 
young families that are waving goodbye to the loved ones will not see 
them for 6 months, and yet you can see pride not only in the sailors 
that are leaving but in the men and women and the children who are 
waving farewell.
  That is who I wish to speak about tonight, the young men, the young 
women in all colors of American uniforms, the fine people that they 
are. And I can say without any hesitation to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) that they are the finest that we have ever 
had, and yet the ironic and sad situation in which we find ourselves is 
that we are not able to support them as they should be.
  That is sad. That is real sad because they are quality young people, 
and they are doing their job for America.
  We have serious problems overseas. The question is asked, where is 
the enemy? The enemy, my colleagues, is instability. We are the only 
superpower in this world. We are the ones whose presence, whose 
leadership, has brought peace and stability, some places more than 
others, but we are looked to for that military leadership. And we 
cannot do it in the future unless we keep that young soldier from 
Springfield or those young sailors aboard that aircraft carrier happy, 
challenged, and that we take care of their families.
  Oh, we talk about a number of pieces of hardware, and they are 
important. We talk about modernization; that is very important.

                              {time}  1930

  I speak about those young people today that need the support of the 
people in this Congress.
  Recently I sent a letter, with all of the ranking Democrats and 
Republicans, regarding this very issue: the need for increased spending 
for our national security. It is no light thing; it is no small thing. 
If we could only have a predictable percentage of the gross national 
product, this committee on which I serve, this Congress in which I 
serve, and the administration which executes what we order here could 
have some stability, some planning capability. The young people who are 
in would know that they have a future, that they might want to stay for 
20, 25 or 30 years without the fear of reduction in force. These are 
the things of which I speak.
  Mr. Speaker, why is there a problem today? I am convinced there is a 
problem today because there is a gap, sadly, Mr. Speaker, a growing 
gap, between civilian America and military America. When the draft was 
in force, nearly every family had some experience with someone wearing 
a uniform.
  Well, the draft ended, as my colleagues know, back in 1973, as it 
should have, because we went to an all-volunteer force, and it works. 
It works extremely well. Quality young people, quality leaders, 
excellent military education, really proud of them.
  Yet, because of the fewer and fewer young people coming from fewer 
and fewer families across our country, those who normally in the olden 
days would write their Member of Congress to please look after little 
Johnny because he is on a submarine in the Pacific; please look after 
Lucy, my daughter, as she serves at Lackland Air Force Base; please 
look after my Marine son who is a guard in an embassy in what used to 
be the old Soviet sphere; we do not get that support, we do not get 
those letters, because there are fewer and fewer American families that 
have that experience. I know their heart is with the young people in 
uniform, but out of sight, out of mind.
  There are fewer people to write us, and we in this Chamber are 
creatures of those we represent in whose shoes we stand, and if they 
are not contacting us because there are not that many that have 
families that are serving in uniform, consequently, it is off our 
screen as well as theirs. It is this gap between civilian America and 
military America that concerns me.

[[Page H2785]]

  Well, Mr. Speaker, we have to do something. I will do my best. I know 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is doing his best. And I 
compliment our chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) 
for his efforts. Others will speak on this issue. I know the gentleman 
from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) will join in this matter. I thank the 
gentleman for bringing this to the attention of the American people.
  One last thing, Mr. Speaker. I do not want, and I will repeat, I do 
not want this discussion tonight, as serious as it is and the fact that 
it should convince people across our country of the need for additional 
resources to take care of the young people and to take care of our 
national security, but I do not want this to dampen the spirits of the 
young people who are in uniform. I say to them, Mr. Speaker, we need 
them; we need them now more than ever. We need them not just in 
numbers, but we need their quality.
  So wherever we are, whether we are a Member of Congress, whether they 
are neighbors of ours back in Missouri, or wherever we are from, let us 
say a good word to the young person that is wearing the uniform; let us 
tell them we are proud of them, stay the course, because sooner or 
later they will be called upon to defend the American flag and the 
American interests.
  Again, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
those eloquent words and for his leadership on national security issues 
in this Congress. The gentleman is an example of an outstanding member 
dedicated, as is our chairman, to the issue of providing for the 
support of our troops at home and abroad.
  Mr. Speaker, our special order tonight goes from Pennsylvania to 
South Carolina to Missouri to Texas. I would now yield to our 
distinguished member of the Committee on National Security from the 
great State of Texas, who has been a champion and a leader on issues 
involving one of the most troublesome situations in the world, and that 
is the security of nuclear material, nuclear fissile material, 
especially those materials that are in the former Soviet states.
  So, with that, I would yield to our good friend and colleague, an 
outstanding member of the committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Thornberry).
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon) for yielding and for his leadership in keeping our defense at 
the forefront of the issues we should be talking about in this body.
  I thought that the chairman's comments outlining some of the threats 
we face, and the ranking member's comments emphasizing the importance 
of people in our military, which are our key asset, were very powerful. 
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the first function of this Federal 
Government is to provide for the defense of the people, and that that 
job is getting harder and not easier.
  We face some enormous challenges, and one of the challenges is we 
have to transform our military structures and the organizations and 
cultures and doctrines to meet the challenges that we face in the 
future, many of which our chairman has outlined. That is a tough job. 
We also have to make sure that we have the resources necessary in order 
to keep the American people safe.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to go from the broad issues that have been 
discussed so far to just talk about a little piece of it and how this 
budgetary constraint is affecting even a small piece, but an important 
piece of our defense efforts, and that is our nuclear weapons program 
which is not within the Department of Defense, but within the 
Department of Energy, yet it is part of the overall defense budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone will contest that our nuclear 
deterrence was absolutely essential and probably the key to winning the 
Cold War during our struggle with the Soviet Union, and it is still 
important in deterring others around the world who may wish us ill. As 
nuclear capability spreads to more and more countries, as our chairman 
mentioned; as chemical and biological capabilities spread around the 
world to more and more countries, and other terrorist-like 
organizations; as the capability to take those horrible weapons and 
deliver them very quickly with missiles, as that technology spreads, 
nuclear weapons continue to be the umbrella under which the rest of our 
defense efforts will fall.
  We build our nuclear weapons to last about 20 years. They are fast 
approaching the end of their design life. They age and change just like 
other machines do, but they age and change in ways that we do not fully 
understand. Yet, while all of this aging and changing is going on, we 
have decided that we are not going to test nuclear weapons anymore. We 
are going to  have to find other ways to make sure they work, to make 
sure they are safe, to make sure the people who work around them are 
safe; and that represents an enormous challenge.

  Some people have said it is kind of like we have a fleet of cars out 
there on the parking lot through all the weather and the change that 
goes on in the conditions year after year, and we can x-ray them and 
inspect them, but we cannot ever turn them on, we cannot ever turn the 
key. They have to be in as good shape though that if we do ever need to 
turn on the key, we can instantly spring out at 100 miles an hour. That 
is just one way of looking at the enormous challenge we face.
  The way we decided to do that is, as I mentioned, not to test, but 
through a program called stockpile stewardship. That involves our 
computer capability. It involves testing components, little pieces of 
the nuclear weapons; it involves new diagnostic machines to x-ray and 
look at them in various ways to see what is happening on the inside; 
and all of that has to go on while we are losing the people who built 
the weapons to begin with as they age and dwindle and leave, many of 
them leave, the nuclear weapons complex.
  Mr. Speaker, the bottom line to all of this is that we face an 
enormous technological challenge. A number of scientists whom I visited 
with recently say the only thing this country has ever attempted this 
difficult is the original Manhattan Project and trying to land a man on 
the moon. It is that tough technologically and scientifically to make 
sure these things are safe and reliable without testing.
  But it is also expensive. These machines are expensive. It is 
expensive to conduct these tests. It is expensive to keep the right, 
knowledgeable scientific talent available there, working on these 
problems. And while we are doing all that, we have the regular 
maintenance and upkeep and other things that go along with the nuclear 
weapons stockpile that have to go along as well.
  Now, to do all that, we have received testimony that it takes at 
least $5 billion a year, and yet the President's request this year was 
$4.5 billion, and it is tough to come up with that amount. And this job 
is only going to get tougher as the years go by and these weapons age 
and we lose more of the people, it is going to be even more expensive. 
Yet, if we miscalculate slightly, if we shave off a little bit here and 
a little bit there, and a problem develops, that problem will have 
enormous consequences for the future of our security, for others' 
reliance upon our nuclear umbrella. For the safety of the people who 
work with and around these nuclear weapons, it has tremendous 
consequences.
  That is just a small example of some of the importance, some of the 
effects that not putting the right resources into these programs can 
have for our children's future and our children's security. All of the 
strategic systems upon which our victory in the Cold War was based are 
aging and becoming more difficult to maintain, and really we are not 
doing anything in the foreseeable future to replace them at all. We are 
going to have to put in the spare parts just to keep them going.
  It is an enormous challenge. It will require the best minds that we 
have, but it will also require the dollars necessary to keep this 
effort going. I think that in a way, the nuclear weapons challenge, 
even though it is less than 2 percent of the whole defense budget, is 
an example of the kinds of challenges we face throughout the defense 
budget and an example of the dangers that my more senior colleagues 
have talked about so far.
  So I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), for yielding 
and giving me the opportunity to contribute.

[[Page H2786]]

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague, an 
outstanding member of the Committee on National Security, for his 
leadership, especially in the area of nuclear material, control and 
security, and our stockpile stewardship.
  One of the items that our distinguished colleague did not mention, 
which is also of great concern both to him and to us, is the security 
of the Russian nuclear stockpile. It was last year, Mr. Speaker, in 
May, when I led a delegation to Moscow and we sat in the office of 
General Alexsander Lebed, who was at one time a key defense advisor to 
Boris Yeltsin. General Lebed was talking to us about his concerns 
relative to the security of the Russian nuclear forces, as well as the 
Russian military in general; and he told us some real horror stories. 
One of the ones that was really picked up by our national media was 
that when General Lebed reported to Boris Yeltsin, one of his 
responsibilities was to account for 132 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, 
nuclear devices called Small Atomic Demolition Devices, SADDMs, that 
both the U.S. and Russia had built at one time, but we destroyed all of 
ours in the arms control process, he was charged by Yeltsin to account 
for the 132 devices that Russia built.
  And he said, Members of Congress, I could only find 48. And we said, 
what do you mean, General Lebed? How could you only come up with 48 of 
the 132? After all, these are devices that have a capacity of one 
kiloton, which is one-tenth of the capacity of Hiroshima; it could wipe 
out the entire inner-city area. He said, that is it. We do not know the 
status of the others.
  I came back to Washington and with my colleagues we debriefed the 
intelligence community. They said, Mr. Congressman, we have no idea 
about the whereabouts of these devices. Initially, the Russian 
Government denied they ever existed in the fall of last year, and 
finally in December, the defense minister, former general of the Soviet 
command staff, the strategic staff, General Sergeyev, told me in a 
meeting in Moscow, yes, Mr. Congressman, we built these devices, yes, 
we have not destroyed them all, but by the year 2000 we will have 
destroyed them.
  The point is, Mr. Speaker, we are just not sure whether or not one of 
these devices could or has gotten into the wrong hands, and we must 
understand that even though we would perceive Russia to be all that 
more stable, one could easily make the case that Russia is more 
destabilized today than at any point in time in the last 50 years.

                              {time}  1945

  And unfortunately, that instability comes while they still maintain a 
nuclear arsenal that can hit our country and still maintain these kinds 
of small demolition devices that in the wrong hands could wreak havoc 
on any American city. That is the kind of concern that we have to 
address with a very limited and increasingly smaller defense budget.
  Mr. Speaker, joining us in this effort is the gentleman from the 
great State of Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and someone who has become a 
champion on security issues and a strong advocate and very 
knowledgeable Member on missile defense and the implications of that.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
for yielding to me. I am delighted to have the opportunity to be here 
with my colleagues on the Committee on National Security, most 
particularly with the chairman of our Subcommittee on Military Research 
and Development, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
  As the gentleman has indicated, our efforts here on the committee and 
the subcommittees which makes it up are of a bipartisan nature. It has 
been my honor and privilege over the years to serve under Mr. Aspin and 
Mr. Dellums and now the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence). 
During that time, I think that we have grown in our respect for one 
another and certainly I want to acknowledge the commitment that has 
been made by all of the Members, regardless of their party and 
background, to the security interests of this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a popular fashion in political circles these 
days with respect to the idea of limited service in the Congress. That, 
I suppose, has its place in the discussions that ensue throughout the 
Nation as to how we can best serve our country and our national 
interests. But I can assure my colleagues that with respect to our 
national security interests and the defense interests of this country, 
what is required is a commitment and a dedication of years, I might 
even say decades standing, in order to be able to provide the broadest 
possible umbrella of knowledge and perspective as we come to these very 
crucial decisions by our Nation as we enter the next century.
  Mr. Speaker, I dare say, not speaking for Chairman Spence by any 
stretch of the imagination, that in his 28 years of service here to the 
Nation and service to our committee, that even today he feels there is 
much to be learned, much that we have to share with one another in 
order to come to a proper perspective. And why? The reason is that we 
do in fact have 435 votes in this House, 218 votes to make a majority. 
Those who say that votes do not count, those who say that this is just 
business as usual, those who denigrate the Congress of the United 
States, let alone the House, and more particularly those who do not 
understand that when it comes to the security interests of this Nation, 
that we have to have knowledgeable, dedicated people who are on a 
nonpartisan basis going to pursue what those interests are and how to 
achieve them. If we do not have that understanding, then we are doing a 
disservice to this Nation.
  Now, for the record, I would like to indicate that the Committee on 
National Security approximates, I would say, approximately 10 percent 
of the House of Representatives and I think represents a very broad 
perspective, probably reflecting the ideological and philosophical 
commitments of the House of Representatives as a whole.
  In that context what we have is individuals assigned to committees 
who then make it their business to immerse themselves into the business 
of that committee. I am going to focus this evening just particularly 
on the subcommittee on which I am privileged to serve under the 
chairmanship of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon). That is 
the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development.
  Now, on the surface it sounds pretty simple. We do the research and 
then we develop from that research. But let me just read a summary of 
today's action that was taken in committee, a summary of the bill 
language: Navy mine countermeasures program management; future aircraft 
carrier transition technologies; the manufacturing technology program; 
national missile defense policy; limitation on the funding of medium 
extended air defense systems, the MEAD system that the gentleman 
referred to; funding for the cooperative ballistic missile defense 
programs; the counterproliferation support; and the ballistic missile 
program elements.
  Mr. Speaker, I can say these things and they roll off of my tongue 
and my colleagues are familiar with what they mean. But the 
implications of this are stunning in terms of the dollar value and, of 
course, in terms of the strategic value associated with the national 
interests of this Nation and in fact the security interests of the 
world.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania, who I would venture to say, I think 
without contradiction, is the leading exponent and expert, certainly 
congressional expert, with respect to missile defense, someone who I 
might say is always prepared, would agree that unless and until we are 
prepared just in one context that I will mention alone, unless we are 
prepared to deal with missile testing as well as training associated 
with the weapons systems that we are acquiring, the weapons systems we 
are researching, the weapons systems we are developing, unless we are 
prepared to deal with the missile testing element in that, we will not 
be prepared to move forward in meeting our strategic national 
interests. We will be unprepared.
  Now, it sounds strange. How can we possibly not be prepared with 
billions of dollars at stake, with years and years of research, with 
all kinds of development capabilities, major corporations, in fact 
international corporations the size of which will almost beggar the 
imagination of the ordinary citizen contemplating them, how could we 
not possibly be prepared? The reason is that the technology involved

[[Page H2787]]

just in the recitation of some of the program elements that I have just 
outlined, the technology involved is so expensive, the technology 
involved is so complicated and detailed, the sophistication, Mr. 
Speaker, is almost beyond comprehension.
  I just recently visited the Comanche helicopter development facility 
in Florida, and asked just to have a briefing, Mr. Speaker, on the 
capacity of the helicopter not to have information intercepted, on 
being able to have the communications system, a highly sophisticated 
system, not be compromised in any way. This is very, very important, 
Mr. Speaker, because if we do not have this, if there is not a clear 
understanding of what the technology is and how we can protect the 
communications interests associated with the Comanche helicopter, it 
becomes available to those who could do us harm or wish us ill in the 
future.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to deal with questions of technology transfer. 
As the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Chairman Spence) know, I am, shall we say, an adamant 
opponent of the transfer of technology for profit's sake, presumed 
profit's sake, maybe individual dollar profits for some corporations 
and individuals, but certainly not for the profit of the interests of 
the United States. I oppose that.

  Mr. Speaker, the dollars that have been spent and the time and the 
energy and the intellectual input that has gone into just the 
communication system of the Comanche helicopter system is such that a 
full appreciation for the work of the committee I think would follow 
from any honest person's evaluation of what we are trying to 
accomplish.
  So as we contemplate research and development, I think that we have 
to take into account, Mr. Speaker, how are we going to do the funding? 
How are we going to achieve this?
  What is happening right now, and if the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
would care to engage in a bit of dialogue with me on it at this point, 
I think can elucidate this a little and illustrate it. Mr. Speaker, I 
realize the time is short so I will try to make this a summation.
  In my service on the committee, in trying to deal with issues, for 
example, like missile testing, the assumption I think of most Americans 
is that there is an adequate missile defense right now to meet any 
challenge that might come to the United States. But the fact are that 
those systems do not yet exist?
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. The gentleman is absolutely correct.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And in order to accomplish this we will have to have 
a testing and training range. Now, in this instance I happen to be 
familiar with it because it involves the Pacific Missile Testing Range 
in Hawaii in the Pacific. The necessity is, is it not, to upgrade these 
facilities to prepare us for the missile testing that will take place 
within the context of a Navy and Army and an Air Force which will have 
next-generation capabilities, not yet in existence but in process of 
coming on line now?
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Absolutely.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And in this context, in order to provide for this we 
have to understand, there will be a significant change in the very 
context within which we will have an Armed Forces. For example, there 
will be ships in the near future, this is not something that is put off 
into Star Trek time or some imaginary world of science fiction, but 
right now we are developing ships, are we not, that will drastically 
reduce the personnel that will be on those ships, but drastically 
increase the amount of sophisticated technology necessary to bring 
these ships on line and into service.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Absolutely.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, in that context, then, I think the 
gentleman would agree that we have to find a funding mechanism that 
will not, as the gentleman indicated, cannibalize one program at the 
expense of another. I am sure he would agree with that. I also think he 
would agree that what we face right now, perhaps even more importantly, 
reflecting back on the comments of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton), if we fail to find ways to fund adequately our procurement, 
our research, our development, our weapons systems and our acquisition 
of those systems, if we fail that we will hurt readiness. We will hurt 
the capacity of the individuals and the groups who make up our Armed 
Services to be able to prepare themselves for the contingencies that 
they might face, and that in fact is where we find ourselves today.
  So I want to conclude, Mr. Speaker, thanking the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Chairman Weldon) and the gentleman from South Carolina 
(Mr. Spence) for the opportunity to participate with them and indicate 
as a member of the Subcommittee on Military Installations and 
Facilities and the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development, 
that I recognize fully the necessity of finding the proper funding 
mechanism and the proper funding balance in order to provide a defense 
that we can say with full confidence to the American people we will be 
able to provide for the security interests of this Nation.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) for those very pertinent 
remarks and I would just highlight before I introduce the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Hunter) that the gentleman from Hawaii cites the 
need for robust missile defense programs and testing. The largest loss 
of military life in this decade was when 28 young Americans were killed 
in Desert Storm by a low-complexity Scud missile that we could not 
defend against.
  And in January 1995, for those who say we do not need national 
missile defense, Russia was forewarned of a weather rocket launch by 
Norway. When that day came for that rocket launch by Norway, the 
Russian intelligence is so decimated that they misread that as a 
deliberate launch by American nuclear powered submarine. They put their 
full offensive system on alert and activated the black boxes controlled 
by the three top Russian leaders. That gave them 15 minutes to either 
deactivate or allow to continue an all-out nuclear response against the 
U.S.
  With 7 minutes left, Mr. Speaker, President Yeltsin overruled General 
Kalashnikov and that response was called off.
  That is not a Steven Spielberg movie script. That is what happened in 
January 1995 that almost brought us to the brink of nuclear war because 
Russian misread a Norwegian weather rocket that they had been 
forewarned of.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Hunter), my good friend and the chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Military Procurement, a tireless advocate for this Nation's military.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding the time. Let 
me ask the Speaker how much time we have left in the special order, 
because I know the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel 
wants to talk as well?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Blunt). There are 8 minutes left.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, let me know, I am sure my friends will time 
me and let me know when we have divided that time equally, and I will 
then yield back so Mr. Buyer can speak.
  Let me just start by thanking my friend for bringing this special 
order together and the chairman for giving us an historic backdrop with 
all of the wars that he has seen and the police actions and Presidents 
coming and going, Secretaries of Defense coming and going, and seeing 
the backdrop in which we find ourselves right now with this trough of 
military spending. When I say trough, I mean we are spending $100 
billion less in real money than we were spending in the 1980s for 
national security.
  I want to expand a little bit on the statement that was made by my 
friend, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). We had a focus 
group in my area in San Diego recently. That is where we sit behind the 
screen, and we get to see what our constituents really think of us. I 
think that is quite a lesson also.
  But we also get to see what they think about very serious issues. And 
we are asked that question. The question was asked of our constituents, 
who are

[[Page H2788]]

very sophisticated people, do we have a missile defense? Most of them 
thought we did.
  When the moderator said, what is the defense, one of them said, well, 
I think we scramble the jets. Of course, a jet cannot take down an 
intercontinental ballistic missile. Another one said, I think we hit 
them with cruise missiles. Of course, that does not work, because a 
cruise missile goes exceedingly slow. It is like throwing a rock at a 
30.6 bullet.
  One other said, I thought Ronald Reagan took care of that. They 
really did. They thought that his announcements in the 1980s took care 
of the problem. So the facts are, when the Secretary of Defense was 
before us, I asked him that lead-off question, can we stop today a 
single, as Chairman Spence said, a single ballistic missile coming into 
an American city? The answer is no, not one.
  Let me just say for the sake of our listeners what the State of 
defense is today with respect to force structure. Since 1991, we have 
cut defenses in this way: We have gone from 18 Army divisions to only 
10. We have gone from 24 fighter airwings to only 13. So we have cut 
our air power almost in half.
  We have cut our Navy from 546 to 333 ships. So we have cut our Navy 
by almost 40 percent. We went from 18 divisions to 10. So today we have 
10 Army divisions. That is exactly the number of Army divisions we had 
in 1950 when we felt, like a lot of experts have said today in the 
administration, that there is no chance of America being involved in a 
war in the near future because we are the high-tech Nation. We have all 
these things that nobody will mess with and realizes that we have the 
ability to do a lot of high-tech things to our adversaries that they 
cannot respond against.
  That was the same theory that prevailed in 1950, in June of 1950 when 
North Korea swept across the line. We had the atom bomb, so we thought 
nobody would mess with us. North Korea attacked, almost drove us into 
the ocean. We threw the 25th Infantry Division into the Osan pass. It 
was annihilated. General Dean, the commander of the 25th Infantry 
Division, was captured. And the United States was almost driven into 
the sea. We barely held what is known as the Pusan perimeter at the 
south end of that peninsula.
  Later, the Communist Chinese come across the line, so they did not 
respect the atom bomb either. Even though we had the high-tech, we had 
a heck of a fight on our hands, and we lost 50,000 Americans because we 
were not prepared.
  So I would just conclude by saying I thank you for this special order 
tonight. We are approximately 72 percent less in modernization funding 
then we were a few years ago. It is our job to get on with the job of 
rebuilding America's defenses. I thank my friend for the time.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank our gentleman and 
the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Military Procurement. I 
yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) and then I will yield 
to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pappas).
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise here as the chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Military Personnel, and I also witnessed a lot of strain on military 
readiness.
  Last year, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) released a 
report on military readiness, which I believe sounded an alarm on the 
strain of the Armed Forces today. Following his lead, the Subcommittee 
on Military Personnel held a field hearing at Ft. Riley, Kansas in 
March to look at the readiness of our late deploying Army divisions.
  In addition, we asked the GAO to look into these divisions, and here 
is what we found. The 10th division, only 138 of 162 infantry squads 
were fully or minimally manned. At the 2nd and 3rd brigades, the 25th 
division, 52 out of 162 infantry squads were minimally filled.
  At the 1st brigade of the 1st division, only 56 percent of the 
authorized infantry soldiers for its Bradley fighting vehicles were 
assigned. At the 4th infantry division, 13 of 54 squads in the engineer 
brigade had no personnel assigned or had fewer personnel assigned than 
required.
  At the hearing, we heard concerns from a variety of army officers and 
staff NCOs. The company of the 3rd brigade of the 4th infantry division 
said, ``We are in danger of becoming an Army of privates,'' as senior 
NCOs were taken from the line units to fill critical billets in 
recruiting and drill instructor duty. And peacekeeping missions, we are 
left with NCOs who do not have senior status leading these squads.
  Also, the sergeant major of the 1st brigade, 1st infantry division, 
stated that ``Our shortfall in assigned noncommissioned officers does 
negatively impact readiness.''
  We found approximately 330 NCOs are missing out of the brigades of 
the follow-on divisions. That is very, very serious if we are called 
upon to use them in a wartime scenario.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a GAO report from which I took information, and I 
would ask unanimous consent to place that into the Record.
  The report referred to is as follows:

Testimony Before the Subcommittees on Readiness and Military Personnel, 
        Committee on National Security, House of Representatives


   MILITARY READINESS--Observations on Personnel Readiness in Later 
                        Deploying Army Divisions

   (Statement of Mark E. Gebicke, Director, Military Operations and 
   Capabilities Issues, National Security and International Affairs 
                               Division)

       Mr. Chairmen and Members of the Subcommittees:
       I am pleased to be here to discuss our preliminary finding 
     from our ongoing evaluation of personnel readiness in the 
     Army's five later-deploying divisions. These divisions 
     constitute almost half of the Army's active combat forces 
     and, according to Army officials, are critical to the success 
     of specific war plans and the national military strategy.
       This morning, I would first like to summarize our 
     preliminary observations regarding personnel readiness in the 
     later-deploying divisions. Then, I would like to describe in 
     more detail the (1) extent of personnel shortages in the 
     divisions and the extent to which these shortages are 
     reflected in readiness reports, (2) key factors contributing 
     to personnel shortages and the impact such shortages have on 
     readiness, (3) Army's plans for correcting such shortages 
     should these divisions be called upon to deploy, and (4) 
     issues to be considered in dealing with personnel shortages. 
     Unless otherwise indicated, the information provided reflects 
     what we found at the time of our visits to the later-
     deploying divisions during the period August 1997 through 
     January 1998.


                                summary

       In the aggregate, the Army's five later-deploying divisions 
     had an average of 93 percent of their personnel on board at 
     the time of our visits. However, aggregate data does not 
     fully reflect the extent of shortages of combat troops, 
     technical specialists, experienced officers, and 
     noncommissioned officers (NCO) that exist in those divisions.
       The readiness reporting system that contains the aggregate 
     data on these divisions does not fully disclose the impact of 
     personnel shortages on the ability of the divisions' units to 
     accomplish critical wartime tasks. As a result, there is a 
     disconnect between the reported readiness of these forces in 
     formal readiness reports and the actual readiness that we 
     observed on our visits. These disconnects exist because the 
     unit readiness reporting system does not consider some 
     information that has a significant impact on a unit's 
     readiness, such as operating tempo, personnel shortfalls in 
     key positions, and crew and squad staffing.
       The Army's priority in assigning personnel to these 
     divisions, Army-wide shortages of personnel, frequent 
     deployments to peacekeeping missions, and the assignment of 
     soldiers to other tasks outside of their specialty are the 
     primary reasons for personnel shortfalls.
       The impact of personnel shortages on training and readiness 
     is exacerbated by the extent to which personnel are being 
     used for work outside their specialties or units. According 
     to commanders in all the divisions, the collective impact of 
     understaffing squads and crews, transferring to other jobs 
     the NCOs from the crews and squads they are responsible for 
     training, and assigning personnel to other units as fillers 
     for exercises and operations have degraded their capability 
     and readiness.
       If the Army had to deploy these divisions for a high-
     intensity conflict, these divisions would fill their units 
     with Individual Ready Reserve Soldiers, \1\ retired 
     servicemembers, and newly recruited soldiers. However, the 
     Army's plan for providing these personnel includes 
     assumptions that have not been validated, and there may not 
     be enough trained personnel to fully staff or fill later-
     deploying divisions within their scheduled deployment times.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Footnotes at end of article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Solutions, if any, to these problems will depend upon how 
     the Army plans to use these divisions in the future.
       Before I continue, I want to provide you with additional 
     background about the Army's divisions.

[[Page H2789]]

                               Background

       Today's Army faces an enormous challenge to balance risks 
     and resources in order to meet its many missions. Since 1990, 
     active Army ranks have been reduced from 770,000 to 495,000 
     personnel, a reduction of about 36 percent. Simultaneously, 
     world events have dictated that forces be trained and 
     ready to respond to potential high-intensity missions in 
     areas such as Korea and the Persian Gulf while conducting 
     peace enhancement operations around the world.
       The Army currently has 10 active combat divisions compared 
     to the 18 it had at the start of Operation Desert Storm in 
     1991. Four of the 10 divisions are considered contingency 
     divisions and would be the first to deploy in the event of a 
     major theater war. These units are the 82nd Airborne, 101st 
     Air Assault, 3rd Infantry, and 1st Cavalry divisions. The 2nd 
     Infantry Division, while not a contingency force division, is 
     already deployed in Korea.
       The remaining five divisions, which are the focus of my 
     testimony, are expected to deploy in the event of a second 
     simultaneous or nearly simultaneous major theater contingency 
     or as reinforcements for a larger-than-expected first 
     contingency. These units are the 1st Armor, 1st Infantry, 4th 
     Infantry, 10th Infantry, and 25th Infantry divisions. Also, 
     these divisions have been assigned the bulk of the recent 
     peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Haiti, and the 4th 
     Infantry division over the last 2 years has been conducting 
     the Army's advanced war-fighting experiment.
       Appendix I provides a list of the Army's current active 
     divisions and the locations of each division's associated 
     brigades.


    personnel shortages are significant in later-deploying divisions

       In the aggregate, the Army's later-deploying divisions were 
     assigned 66,053, or 93 percent, of their 70,665 authorized 
     personnel at the beginning of fiscal year 1998. However, 
     aggregate numbers do not adequately reflect the condition 
     that exists within individual battalions, companies, and 
     platoons of these divisions. This is because excess personnel 
     exist in some grades, ranks, and skills, while shortages 
     exist in others. For example, while the 1st Armor Division 
     was staffed at 94 percent in the aggregate, its combat 
     support and service support specialties were filled at below 
     85 percent, and captains and majors were filled at 73 
     percent.
       In addition, a portion of each later-deploying division 
     exists only on paper because all authorized personnel have 
     not been assigned. All these divisions contain some squads, 
     crews, and platoons in which no personnel or a minimum number 
     of personnel are assigned. Assigning a minimum number of 
     personnel to a crew means having fewer personnel than needed 
     to fully accomplish wartime missions; for example, having 
     five soldiers per infantry squad rather than nine, tank crews 
     with three soldiers instead of four, or artillery crews with 
     six soldiers rather than nine. We found significant personnel 
     shortfalls in all the later-deploying divisions. For example:
       At the 10th Infantry Division, only 138 of 162 infantry 
     squads were fully or minimally filled, and 36 of the filled 
     squads were unqualified.
       At the 2nd and 3rd brigades of the 25th Infantry Division, 
     52 of 162 infantry squads were minimally filled or had no 
     personnel assigned.
       At the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, only 56 
     percent of the authorized infantry soldiers for its Bradley 
     Fighting Vehicles were assigned, and in the 2nd Brigade, 21 
     of 48 infantry squads had no personnel assigned.
       At the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armor Division, only 16 of 
     116 M1A1 tanks had full crews and were qualified, and in one 
     of the Brigade's two armor battalions, 14 of 58 tanks had no 
     crewmembers assigned because the personnel were deployed to 
     Bosnia. In addition, at the Division's engineer brigade in 
     Germany, 11 of 24 bridge teams had no personnel assigned.
       At the 4th Infantry Division, 13 of 54 squads in the 
     engineer brigade had no personnel assigned or had fewer 
     personnel assigned than required.
       The significance of personnel shortfalls in later-deploying 
     divisions cannot be adequately captured solely in terms of 
     overall numbers. The rank, grade, and experience of the 
     personnel assigned must also be considered. For example, 
     captains and majors are in short supply Army-wide due to 
     drawdown initiatives undertaken in recent years. The five 
     later-deploying divisions had only 91 percent and 78 percent 
     of the captains and majors authorized, respectively, but 138 
     percent of the lieutenants authorized. The result is that 
     unit commanders must fill leadership positions in many units 
     with less-experienced officers than Army doctrine requires. 
     For example, in the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, 
     65 percent of the key staff positions designated to be filled 
     by captains were actually filled by lieutenants or captains 
     that were not graduates of the Advanced Course. We found that 
     three of the five battalion maintenance officers, four of the 
     six battalion supply officers, and three of the four 
     battalion signal officers were lieutenants rather than 
     captains. While this situation represents an excellent 
     opportunity for the junior officers, it also represents a 
     situation in which critical support functions are being 
     guided by officers without the required training or 
     experience.
       There is also a significant shortage of NCOs in the later-
     deploying divisions. Again, within the 1st Brigade, 226, or 
     17 percent of the 1,450, total NCO authorizations, were not 
     filled at the time of our visit. As was the case in all the 
     divisions, a significant shortage was at the first-line 
     supervisor, sergeant E-5, level. At the beginning of fiscal 
     year 1998, the five later-deploying divisions were short 
     nearly 1,900 of the total 25,357 NCOs authorized, and as of 
     February 15, 1998, this shortage had grown to almost 2,200.


  CURRENT READINESS REPORTS DO NOT FULLY DISCLOSE PERSONNEL SHORTFALLS

       In recent years, in reports and testimony before the 
     Congress, we discussed the Status of Resources and Training 
     System (SORTS), which is used to measure readiness, and 
     reported on the need for improvements. SORTS data for units 
     in the later-deploying divisions have often reflected a high 
     readiness level for personnel because the system uses 
     aggregate statistics to assess personnel readiness. For 
     example, a unit that is short 20 percent of all authorized 
     personnel in the aggregate could still report the ability to 
     undertake most of its wartime mission, even though up to 25 
     percent of the key leaders and personnel with critical skills 
     may not be assigned. Using aggregate data to reflect 
     personnel readiness masks the underlying personnel problems I 
     have discussed today, such as shortages by skill level, rank 
     or grade. Compounding these problems are high levels of 
     personnel turnover, incomplete squads and crews, and frequent 
     deployments, none of which are part of the readiness 
     calculation criteria. Yet, when considered collectively, 
     these factors create situations in which commanders may have 
     difficulty developing unit cohesion, accomplishing training 
     objectives, and maintaining readiness.
       Judging by our analysis of selected commanders' comments 
     submitted with their SORTS reports and other available data, 
     the problems I have just noted are real. However, some 
     commanders apparently do not consider them serious enough to 
     warrant a downgrade in the reported readiness rating. For 
     example, at one engineer battalion, the commander told us his 
     unit had lost the ability to provide sustained engineer 
     support to the division. His assessment appeared reasonable, 
     since company-and battalion level training for the past 4 
     months had been cancelled due to the deployment of battalion 
     leaders and personnel to operations in Bosnia. As a result of 
     this deployment, elements of the battalion left behind had 
     only 33 to 55 percent of its positions filled. The commander 
     of this battalion, however, reported an overall readiness 
     assessment of C-2, which was based in part on a personnel 
     level that was over 80 percent in the aggregate. The 
     commander also reported that he would be able to achieve a C-
     1 status in only 20 training days. This does not seem 
     realistic, given the shortages we noted. We found similar 
     disconnects between readiness conditions as reported in SORTS 
     and actual unit conditions at other armor, infantry, and 
     support units.


    many factors have contributed to personnel shortfalls in later 
                          deploying divisions

       Many factors have contributed to shortfalls of personnel in 
     the Army's later-deploying divisions, including (1) the 
     Army's priority for assigning personnel to units, commands 
     and agencies; (2) Army-wide shortages of some types of 
     personnel; (3) peacekeeping operations; and (4) the 
     assignment of soldiers to joint and other Army command, 
     recruiting, and base management functions.
     Later-deploying Divisions Receive Low Priority for Staffing
       The Army uses a tiered system to allocate personnel and 
     other resources to its units. The Army gives top priority to 
     staffing DOD agencies; major commands such as the Central 
     Command, the European Command, and the Pacific Command; the 
     National Training Center; and the Army Rangers and Special 
     Forces Groups. These entities receive 98 to 100 percent of 
     the personnel authorized for each grade and each military 
     occupational specialty. The 2nd Infantry Division, which is 
     deployed in Korea, and the four contingency divisions are 
     second in priority. Although each receives 98 to 100 percent 
     of its aggregate authorized personnel, the total personnel 
     assigned are not required to be evenly distributed among 
     grades or military specialties. The remaining five later-
     deploying divisions receive a proportionate share of the 
     remaining forces. Unlike priority one and two forces, the 
     later-deploying units have no minimum personnel level.
     Army-wide Shortages of Personnel Have Contributed to 
         Shortfalls
       Army-wide shortages of personnel add to the shortfalls of 
     later-deploying divisions. For example, in fiscal year 1997, 
     the Army's enlistment goal for infantrymen was 16,142. 
     However, only about 11,300 of those needed were enlisted, 
     which increased the existing shortage of infantry soldiers by 
     an additional 4,800 soldiers. As of February 15, 1998, Army-
     wide shortages existed for 28 Army specialties. Many 
     positions in squads and crews are left unfilled or minimally 
     filled because personnel are diverted to work in key 
     positions where they are needed more.
       Also, because of shortages of experienced and branch-
     qualified officers, the Army has instituted an Officer 
     Distribution Plan, which distributes a ``fair share'' of 
     officers by grade and specialty among the combat divisions. 
     While this plan has helped spread the shortages across all 
     the divisions, we noted significant shortages of officers in 
     certain specialties at the later-deploying divisions.

[[Page H2790]]

     Peacekeeping Operations Have Exacerbated Shortfalls
       Since 1995, when peacekeeping operations began in Bosnia-
     Herzegovina, there has been a sustained increase in 
     operations for three of the later-deploying divisions: the 
     1st Armor Division, the 1st Infantry Division, and the 10th 
     Infantry Division. For example, in fiscal year 1997, the 1st 
     Armor Division was directed 89 times to provide personnel for 
     operations other than war and contingency operations, 
     training exercises, and for other assignments from higher 
     commands. More than 3,200 personnel were deployed a total of 
     nearly 195,000 days for the assignments, 89 percent of which 
     were for operations in Bosnia. Similarly, the average soldier 
     in the 1st Infantry Division was deployed 254 days in fiscal 
     year 1997, primarily in support of peacekeeping operations.
       Even though the 1st Armor and 1st Infantry Divisions have 
     had 90 percent or more of their total authorized personnel 
     assigned since they began operations in Bosnia, many combat 
     support and service support specialties were substantially 
     understrength, and only three-fourths of field grade officers 
     were in place. As a result, the divisions took personnel from 
     nondeploying units to fill the deploying units with the 
     needed number and type of personnel. As a result, the 
     commanders of nondeploying units have squads and crews 
     with no, or a minimal number of, personnel.
     Other Assignments of Soldiers Have Created More Shortfalls of 
         Personnel
       Unit commanders have had to shuffle personnel among 
     positions to compensate for shortages. For example, they 
     assign soldiers that exist in the largest numbers--infantry, 
     armor, and artillery--to work in maintenance, supply, and 
     personnel administration due to personnel shortages in these 
     technical specialties; assign soldiers to fill personnel 
     shortages at a higher headquarters or to accomplish a mission 
     for higher headquarters; and assign soldiers to temporary 
     work such as driving buses, serving as lifeguards, and 
     managing training ranges--vacancies in some cases which have 
     resulted from civilian reductions on base.
       At the time of our visit, the 1st Brigade of the 1st 
     Infantry Division had 372, or 87 percent, of its 428 
     authorized dismount infantry. However, 51 of these 372 
     soldiers were assigned to duties outside their specialties to 
     fill critical technical shortages, command-directed 
     positions, and administrative and base management activities. 
     These reassignments lowered the actual number of soldiers 
     available for training to 75 percent daily.
       In Germany, at the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry 
     Division, 21 of 48 infantry squads had no personnel assigned 
     due to shortages. From the remaining 27 squads that were 
     minimally filled, the equivalent of another five squads of 
     the Brigade's soldiers were working in maintenance, supply, 
     and administrative specialties to compensate for personnel 
     shortages in those specialties. The end result is that the 
     brigade only had 22 infantry squads with 7 soldiers each 
     rather than 48 squads with 9 soldiers each.


    army officials believe readiness and training have been degraded

       According to Army officials, the reduction of essential 
     training, along with the cumulative impact of the shortages I 
     just outlined, has resulted in an erosion of readiness due to 
     the cumulative impact of the shortages I just outlined. 
     Readiness in the divisions responsible for peacekeeping 
     operations in Bosnia has been especially affected because the 
     challenges imposed by personnel shortages are compounded by 
     frequent deployments. Universally, division officials told us 
     that the shortage of NCOs in the later-deploying divisions is 
     the biggest detriment to overall readiness because crews, 
     squads, and sections are led by lower-level personnel rather 
     than by trained and experienced sergeants. Such a situation 
     impedes effective training because these replacement 
     personnel become responsible for training soldiers in 
     critical skills they themselves may not have been trained to 
     accomplish. At one division, concern was expressed about the 
     potential for a serious training accident because tanks, 
     artillery, and fighting vehicles were being commanded by 
     soldiers without the experience needed to safely coordinate 
     the weapon systems they command.
       According to Army officials, the rotation of units to 
     Bosnia has also degraded the training and readiness of the 
     divisions providing the personnel. For example, to deploy an 
     800-soldier task force last year, the Commander of the 3rd 
     Brigade Combat Team had to reassign 63 soldiers within the 
     brigade to serve in infantry squads of the deploying unit, 
     strip nondeploying infantry and armor units of maintenance 
     personnel, and reassign NCOs and support personnel to the 
     task force from throughout the brigade. These actions were 
     detrimental to the readiness of the nondeploying units. For 
     example, gunnery exercises for two armor battalions had to be 
     canceled and 43 of 116 tank crews became unqualified on the 
     weapon system, the number of combat systems out of commission 
     increased, and contractors were hired to perform maintenance.
       According to 1st Armor and 1st Infantry division officials, 
     this situation has reduced their divisions' readiness to the 
     point of not being prepared to execute wartime missions 
     without extensive training and additional personnel.


 retirees, individual ready reservists, and new recruits would be used 
                           to fill shortfalls

       If the later-deploying divisions are required to deploy to 
     a second major theater contingency, the Army plans to fill 
     personnel shortfalls with retired servicemembers, members of 
     the Individual Ready Reserve, and newly trained recruits. The 
     number of personnel to fill the later deploying divisions 
     could be extensive, since (1) personnel from later deploying 
     divisions would be transferred to fill any shortages in the 
     contingency units that are first to deploy and (2) these 
     divisions are already short of required personnel.
       The Army's plan for providing personnel under a scenario 
     involving two major theater contingencies includes 
     unvalidated assumptions. For example, the plan assumes that 
     the Army's training base will be able to quadruple its output 
     on short notice and that all reserve component units will 
     deploy as scheduled. Army officials told us that based on 
     past deployments, not all the assumptions in their plans will 
     be realized, and there may not be sufficient trained 
     personnel to fully man later-deploying divisions within their 
     scheduled deployment times. Finally, if retired personnel or 
     Individual Ready Reserve members are assigned to a unit, 
     training and crew cohesion may not occur prior to deployment 
     because Army officials expect some units to receive personnel 
     just before deployment.


      solutions depend on expectations for later-deploying forces

       Finding solutions to the personnel problems I have 
     discussed today will not be easy, given the Army's many 
     missions and reduced personnel. While I have described 
     serious shortfalls of personnel in each of later-deploying 
     divisions, this condition is not necessarily new. What is new 
     is the increased operating tempo, largely brought about 
     because of peacekeeping operations, which has exacerbated the 
     personnel shortfalls in these divisions. However, before any 
     solutions can be discussed, the Army should determine whether 
     it wants to continue to accept the current condition of its 
     active force today, that is, five fully combat-ready 
     divisions and five less than fully combat-capable divisions.
       The Army has started a number of initiatives that 
     ultimately may help alleviate some of the personnel 
     shortfalls I have described. These initiatives include 
     targeted recruiting goals for infantry and maintenance 
     positions; the advanced war-fighting experiment, which may 
     reduce the number of personnel required for a division 
     through the use of technology; and better integration of 
     active and reserve forces. Efforts to streamline 
     institutional forces \4\ may also yield personnel that could 
     be used to fill vacancies such as these noted in my 
     testimony.
       If such efforts do not yield sufficient personnel or 
     solutions to deal with the shortages we have noted in this 
     testimony, we believe it is important that the Army, at a 
     minimum, review its current plans for rectifying these 
     shortfalls in the event of a second major theater war. In 
     particular, if the Army expects to deploy fully combat-
     capable divisions for such a war, it should review the 
     viability of alleviating shortfalls predominately with 
     reservists from the Individual Ready Reserve.
       This concludes my testimony. I will be happy to answer any 
     questions you may have at this time.


                               footnotes

     \1\ The Individual Ready Reserve is comprised of officers and 
     enlisted soldiers with prior military service who are 
     completing their 8-year military service obligation or who 
     are not assigned to units. The majority of these personnel 
     have no annual training requirements.
     \2\ Three of the 18 divisions were composed of 2 active 
     brigades and 1 reserve component brigade. Today, the 10 
     divisions are composed of all active duty units.
     \3\ The system assigns each unit a readiness rating from C-1 
     to C-5. A C-1 unit can undertake the full wartime mission for 
     which it is organized and designed; a C-2 unit can undertake 
     the bulk of its wartime mission; a C-3 unit can undertake 
     major portions of its wartime mission; C-4 and C-5 units are 
     at lower levels of readiness. Each commander reporting 
     readiness may use his/her professional judgment to either 
     upgrade or downgrade the calculated overall C-rating by one 
     level but must provide a written justification in the form of 
     ``commander's comments.''
     \4\ The Army's institutional force provides generally 
     nondeployable support to the Army infrastructure, including 
     training, doctrine development, base operations, supply, and 
     maintenance.

                               Appendix I


                         ACTIVE ARMY DIVISIONS

     Contingency Divisions
       1st Cavalry Division--headquarters and three brigades at 
     Fort Hood, TX.
       3d Infantry Division--headquarters and two brigades at Fort 
     Steward, GA, one brigade at Fort Benning, GA.
       82d Airborne Division--headquarters and three brigades at 
     Fort Bragg, NC.
       101st Airborne Division--headquarters and three brigades at 
     Fort Campbell, KY.
     Forward Stationed Division
       2d Infantry Division--headquarters and two brigades in 
     Korea, one brigade at Fort Lewis, WA.
     Later Deploying Divisions
       1st Infantry Division--headquarters and two brigades in 
     Germany, one brigade at Fort Riley, KS.
       1st Armored Division--headquarters and two brigades in 
     Germany, one brigade at Fort Riley, KS.
       4th Infantry Division--headquarters and two brigades at 
     Fort Hood, TX, one brigade at Fort Carson, CO.

[[Page H2791]]

       10th Mountain Division--headquarters and two brigades at 
     Fort Drum, NY.
       25th Infantry Division--headquarters and two brigades at 
     Schofield Barracks, HI, one brigade at Fort Lewis, WA.

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I yield the last 2 minutes 
of the special order to our friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pappas).
  Mr. PAPPAS. Mr. Speaker, I take my job as a Member of Congress very 
seriously. No responsibility is more important than Congress' role to 
provide for the Senate defense. This responsibility, before all others, 
is why we are here. Yet, today, we face threats. Our troops face 
threats. Our allies face threats. Our interests face threats.
  The May 1, 1998 Washington Times reported that China has at least 13 
intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at American soil. We cannot 
defend against an attack because we cannot afford national missile 
defense. Our troops in Korea and elsewhere have missiles of mass 
destruction with chemical and biological weapons aimed at them. We 
cannot protect them either. It is not just missiles.
  New technology poses new threats. For example, computer hackers in a 
rogue nation can break into our computers and cripple our military 
communications systems.
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for arranging this 
special order today to focus on the plight of the Department of Defense 
(DoD) and its ever declining budget. This is the 14th straight year 
that DoD funding has decreased. Readiness is suffering because DoD does 
not have enough funds to train its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and 
Marines. Readiness is suffering because military personnel are leaving 
the force because they are away from their families too often and when 
they are home, their quality of life is declining. If the force is not 
ready, it cannot protect this nation.
  Bedsies readiness concerns, the force also cannot protect the nation 
if its equipment is not the best in the world. The planned budgets do 
not provide sufficiently to upgrade the military's equipment. How can 
we send these young men and women to battle without the best equipment?
  The Army in particular is suffering greatly under the current and 
future budget plans. The Army is doing much more with much less. Since 
the end of the Cold War, the size of the force has shrunk by 300,000. 
At the same time, however, Army deployments have increased by 300%. 
Sixty percent of the forces committed to the multiple operations across 
the world is Army. Even so, the Army receives less than one fourth of 
DoD's funding. The Army simply does not have the funding necessary to 
complete all of the missions being required of it.
  Due to insufficient budgets planned for the future, the Army is being 
forced to make cuts that are unacceptable and it is being forced to 
make these cuts in ways that do not make sense. Just today, I was in a 
meeting concerning civilian cuts to Army training posts. We were told 
that cuts have to be made because--bottom line--the budget is too low. 
At the same time, the Army is looking at ways to privatize some of its 
activities. The Army is supposed to study which jobs can be outsourced 
and maintain the personnel for the jobs which cannot be outsourced. Due 
to budgetary constraints, however, the Army is cutting in a haphazard 
manner--losing many of those civilians who really may be essential to 
Army activities.
  The vast decline in the national security budget is requiring these 
cuts to be made in ways that do not make sense. We are eating our seed 
corn. The average age of a DoD civilian is now close to 50 years old. 
Within five years, it would seem that all those with experience and 
knowledge will make it to retirement and leave. This will leave our 
defense department without individuals with any institutional 
knowledge.
  I urge the President and my colleagues in Congress to increase the 
defense budget. As a Vietnam veteran, I understand the need for quality 
equipment. I understand the need for high morale in soldiers. As a 
former civil servant, I understand the importance of civil servants to 
running an agency and the need for high morale among their ranks to 
operate well. If the defense budget is not increased in the outyears, 
the military's equipment will be insufficient and the personnel--both 
uniformed and civilian--will continue to be demoralized. And--we will 
no longer be able to claim to be the best and strongest military in the 
world.
  Without our strong military, we would not be the country that we are 
today. Remember that we could actually have lost several wars this 
century and we could all be speaking German.

                          ____________________