[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 164 (Thursday, November 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14754-S14755]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      MILITARY STATE OF READINESS

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was presiding when the distinguished 
Senator from Ohio was talking about the problems the U.N. faces in 
Kosovo. I share all of the concerns the Senator from Ohio expressed. In 
addition to that, since I am the chairman of the Senate Armed Services 
Readiness Subcommittee, I have another concern, and that is the 
deployment of troops in 1995 into Bosnia, then again to Kosovo, and the 
way they are being deployed today has put us in an apparent condition 
in terms of our state of readiness.
  It is very unfortunate that during this administration we have had a 
cut in our force strength by approximately 50 percent, only to find out 
just last week that two of our Army divisions are now rated at C-4. 
That means they are not capable of combat today. Those

[[Page S14755]]

two divisions are the 10th Army Division, of which most are located in 
Bosnia, and the 1st Infantry Division located in Kosovo.
  This means that if something should happen, we are not in a ready 
condition to defend America, where we do have national security 
interests which, in my opinion, we do not have and never had in either 
Bosnia or Kosovo. I stood side by side with the Senator from Ohio in 
trying to keep us from making that deployment. We were not successful. 
I do believe we should be looking very soon at any way we can bring our 
troops back to a state of readiness, to do what we are supposed to be 
doing, the No. 1 function of Government, and that is to defend America.

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