[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.
____________________