[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1254-S1257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NEED FOR MILITARY IMPROVEMENTS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to turn my attention this 
afternoon to something a little bit more immediate in terms of the 
Senate's actions. We all saw the news yesterday of the President's 
visit to Fort Stewart in Georgia. In fact, I spoke with a colleague of 
ours who had been with the President on that trip. She talked about the 
rather sorry state of the military barracks she visited, and the need 
for improvements to the military quality of life all around the 
country, exemplified by the President's visit to Fort Stewart.
  As a result of his visit, the President has made some very forward-
leaning announcements about improvement of the quality of life, 
including $5.7 billion in new spending--$1.4 billion for military pay 
increases, $400 million to improve military housing, $3.9 billion to 
improve military health benefits, $5.7 billion on new spending for the 
people in our military. I am certain that part of that will have to 
come through a so-called supplemental appropriations bill.
  For those who are not totally familiar with the work of the Senate, 
ordinarily at about this time of the year, the Senate has to provide 
some infusion of cash to the military because of unforeseen 
expenditures and some that really were not so unforeseen but which were 
not budgeted for. For example, we know we will have to be in Bosnia and 
Kosovo and some other places in the world. Unfortunately, the previous 
administration never budgeted for those operations in advance, so the 
military had to pay for those operations out of hide.
  They had to not buy certain spare parts, not sail ships during 
certain hours, not provide for maintenance of facilities and 
installations, deferring that for a later day, and use the money 
instead to support these operations abroad. Each year, we have had, 
therefore, a supplemental appropriations bill. Basically, the bill 
comes due. It has to be paid one way or another, sooner or later. We 
will have to do that same thing this year.
  The President has decided to wait a little bit to make sure he knows 
exactly how much is needed. By the way, I hope President Bush will say 
to the Congress: I found out that we need exactly--and then give us the 
number. Let's assume it is $5 billion, for the sake of argument--I 
would like the Congress to provide $5 billion in supplemental 
appropriations to get our military through the end of the fiscal year. 
That is how much we need, and I will veto a bill that is a dollar less 
or a dollar more.
  In other words, this should not become a Christmas tree for 
everyone's favorite project. I urge the President to give us an exact 
figure and tell us it is on our shoulders to pass that supplemental 
appropriations bill for him, for the military, and to reject any change 
we may make, therefore, removing the temptation some of our colleagues 
have to load those bills up with things that don't really pertain to 
necessities for the military.
  I also want to suggest that we are going to need that supplemental 
appropriations bill not just for the quality of life of our military 
but for readiness. Certainly, the Presiding Officer knows this better 
than almost anybody in this body. Readiness has suffered during the 
last several years through a combination of two primary circumstances. 
One, we are deploying troops far more frequently and far-flung around 
the world than in the past. Two, we have cut the spending year after 
year, so we don't have the equipment in top shape to send where we need 
to send it, when we need to send it. Our troops are overstressed. The 
net result is readiness

[[Page S1255]]

has suffered. We would not be able to go tomorrow where we need to in 
the world with the same degree of confidence we were able to muster, 
say, a decade ago when we went to the Persian Gulf.
  I think a few statistics are interesting. The lack of spare parts 
forced our military to cannibalize systems to keep things working. GAO 
found in 1999, ``cannibalization was so widespread in the Air Force 
that maintenance personnel spent 178,000 hours over 2 years removing 
parts from bombers and fighters and transports to put into other 
planes.''
  I was at Luke Air Force Base in the western part of the Phoenix area 
not long ago and was told of the 100-plus planes they had there--
roughly 10 percent were F-16s, by the way, the top of our fighter 
line--were being used for cannibalization. That has gotten some better. 
That illustrates we are cannibalizing our equipment, and we know that 
is the beginning of the end, in terms of readiness.
  The Navy, the same thing. We could go through all the different 
services. I won't take the time to do that. These cannibalization 
rates, not only in the Navy, have doubled in the last 4 years, but the 
problem is most acute among the jet aircraft that are most in demand.
  I think there is a broad consensus that we need to be improving our 
readiness and that those are bills that need to be paid now, equipment 
that needs to be purchased now. We can't wait until the beginning of 
the next fiscal year, which is not until October, this fall sometime. I 
hope when the President sends his supplemental appropriations request 
to us, it will include both the personnel quality of life needs he has 
already announced, which I think all of us will support very strongly, 
and in addition to that some immediate needs to improve our readiness. 
I was going to say ``ensure'' our readiness, but the fact is, we can't 
do enough in supplemental appropriations to ensure readiness. We can 
just begin to get to the point where we have the state of readiness we 
really desire.

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congressional Budget Office, and 
various independent analysts from groups such as Brookings Institution 
and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment and former 
Secretaries of Defense, such as Harold Brown and Jim Slessinger--all of 
these groups and individuals, and many more, have come to the 
conclusion that we are going to need to increase defense spending over 
the next several years, and we are going to have to do it fairly 
dramatically.
  I applaud the administration's efforts to examine what we really 
need, what we can do without, and how we are going to structure our 
forces to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. It is time to 
get out of the old thinking and keep putting money into the same old 
weapons projects.
  That said--and we all understand the need for this review--it is also 
true that at the same time we are doing that review, we can and should 
be doing things to improve our military, things we know need to be 
done; and whatever we are going to be doing in 5, 8, 10 years, we know 
we will need additional funding to support the troops during the next 
5, 6, 8, 10 years.
  So it is not a matter of either/or, or first we do a review and then 
decide how much to spend. We know we need to spend some money now and 
we also need to reevaluate our long-term strategy so we can better fix 
our spending for the future.
  For those who say we can't do anything until all of that is done, I 
say listen to those who are expert, who have testified to this in the 
past, the Joint Chiefs and staff and others, who understand our 
military requirements right this minute. We are not talking about 
buying new weapons systems that have to be reevaluated. Let me make it 
clear that I support President Bush's desire to reevaluate every one of 
these weapons systems. I have severe doubts about whether some of the 
most expensive systems we have on the drawing board really need to go 
forward. But we also know, in the meantime, we do have needs, unmet 
needs, which can only be satisfied through an increase in defense 
spending.
  That is why I think it is important for us not only to pass the 
supplemental appropriation at the time the President sends it to us but 
also to put together very soon a budget for the Department of Defense 
which meets some of these short-term needs.
  Essentially, my bottom line here is the military, the armed services 
don't have the luxury of waiting until the end of a review to meet some 
of the needs of today. That is my primary point.
  I talked about a dual problem. One problem is the degree of 
deployment, the number of overseas missions assigned to our military, 
increased by just under 300 percent during the previous administration, 
with President Clinton deploying our forces on such missions 40 times 
compared to 14 times under former President Bush, and 16 times under 
Reagan. The readiness problems have resulted from that, plus 
spending not keeping up with the needs.

  Just a couple of further illustrations of the problem. A recent 
article in Defense Week quotes at length from an internal Navy audit 
into the readiness of F-14 squadrons, which are suffering from this 
combination of high operational tempos and insufficient funding. One of 
the quotations from that audit is that, ``more and more, forward forces 
are short on planes, munitions, spare parts, and training time. This 
could result in F-14 squadrons being at high risk while engaging the 
enemy, an unnecessary loss of life and property, and failure to achieve 
U.S. policy goals.''
  That is pretty serious. When that degree of risk is upon us today, we 
can't wait until tomorrow to put the funding into the military budget 
to make up for the shortfall in the short run. We have not budgeted for 
expenses such as our efforts in the Balkans, as I pointed out before. 
That ought to be budgeted in the general budget and not have to come to 
us each year in a supplemental appropriation.
  Unless we are able to infuse this kind of money into the defense 
budget very quickly, then the Navy is going to be forced to cut its 
flying hours; the Air Force is going to have to make adjustments that 
will erode its readiness, including flying hours, maintenance, air crew 
proficiency, aircraft maintenance and repair, not to mention that spare 
parts and fuel shortages are going to be required to be rectified if we 
are going to have a high state of readiness during the interim period 
between now and the time the new force the Bush administration is 
talking about comes into play.
  Mr. President, there is something else we are going to have to do, 
and that is to begin doing the kind of research that will be necessary 
to effectuate President Bush's new plans. He asked for a review of 
these military programs by experts in the Pentagon and outside who will 
come to him with some very bold ideas, I predict; and they are going to 
call for modernization of the force, the use of the most recent 
technology, the application of that technology in ways that we haven't 
even dreamed of up until now. But unless we are willing to put money 
back into research and development, as we used to do, we are not going 
to be able to effectuate these plans. They are going to look great on 
paper, but we are not going to have the ability to do it. Why? It takes 
skilled people in place. Unless these people believe they have a 
future, they don't sign up for these particular kinds of jobs. The 
contractors themselves can't wrap up with a group of people and 
facilities to do something for which there is no contract and no hope 
of a contract.
  You cannot just make this appear out of thin air. That is why we have 
to begin planning today for the defense budget for this coming fiscal 
year to begin to reestablish a robust research and development program 
that will be able to service the budgetary requirements that are going 
to come from the administration in the creation of its new 
technological military for the 21st century.
  We have been eating our seed corn in this regard over the last 
several years. Again, the Presiding Officer knows better than most in 
this body that we have cut research and development way back in order 
to put some money into quality of life and to keep our forces as ready 
as we can possibly keep them. The result of that has been to reduce 
drastically the amount of money available for our research and 
development.

[[Page S1256]]

  That is an area where we are going to have to add to the budget that 
comes before the Congress this year, and if the administration, 
frankly, is unwilling to do that, then the Congress has to put that 
money in the budget so when the President needs those people and those 
facilities to begin developing these new high-tech products, we will be 
able to respond to that call.
  There are some other areas in which we are going to have to add money 
to the budget. I spoke this morning with respect to missile defense. It 
is very clear we are going to be making some decisions early on in this 
administration to proceed with the development of missile defense. I 
applaud the administration's desire to reevaluate the exact components 
and structure of that defense because, frankly, I do not think the way 
the Clinton administration was thinking about doing it was the best. It 
was rudimentary; it was vulnerable; it was effective only in an 
extraordinarily limited sense.
  As a first step, it might just be fine, but we are going to have to 
reevaluate how to put this together and undoubtedly expend funds for 
research and development, as well as deployment of these systems. That 
is not going to happen without money in the budget.
  When opponents of missile defense say it is going to cost a lot of 
money, they exaggerate about how much, but they are right about one 
thing: We are going to have to put more money in the budget for it, 
more money than has been in the budget in the past. As a result, the 
budget we put together and send to the President--and I hope the budget 
the President puts together for our review--will include additional 
support for ballistic missile defense, especially in an area which has 
been robbed in the past, and that is the sea-based missile defense.
  Mr. President, you may have been one of our colleagues--I believe you 
were--who supported a lawsuit that I filed against the Secretary of 
Defense several years ago for refusing to spend money that the Congress 
authorized and appropriated for specific missile defense programs, 
specifically, the sea-based systems of the Navy and the THAAD Program 
of the Army. The Secretary of Defense at that time said: I understand 
that you have appropriated and authorized this funding, but I am not 
going to spend the money.
  Subsequently, he began to spend a little bit of it. That, plus the 
fact that money that which had been in those programs was taken from 
those programs and applied to other programs, has instead resulted in a 
severe underfunding of these missile defense programs.
  These are theater missile defense programs, and the Navy program 
especially has been robbed and shortchanged. Unless we are willing to 
put money into the budget to ramp those programs back up to where they 
should be, we are not going to be able to deploy the Navy portion of 
the missile defense system as we should. The irony is that if we put 
the money into the budget--and it takes a relatively small amount; my 
guess is over 4 years about $1.5 billion as an add-on will do the 
trick--if we were to put that kind of money into the budget, we could 
actually deploy a Navy missile defense system sooner and more 
effectively than a land-based system. In any event, we have the two to 
complement each other. The bottom line is we are going to have to put 
more money into the missile defense part of the budget.

  Finally, there has been a suggestion the Department of Energy's 
defense weapons component of the budget is going to have to take a big 
hit. That, too, is a big mistake because when the proponents of the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty said we really have a substitute 
for testing, it is called the Stockpile Stewardship Program, I raised 
several questions. First, we are not going to know for more than a 
decade whether it is going to produce results.
  Second, I predicted Congress' desire to continue funding for this 
program would wane over time. I have been the second staunchest 
supporter, by the way, of funding after our colleague, Pete Domenici 
from New Mexico. Sure enough, now there is a suggestion that the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program should be shorted some funding.
  You cannot have it both ways. You cannot argue on the one hand we do 
not need to do any testing and on the other hand we need to change the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program.
  These are three specific areas I mentioned: the need for research and 
development, the need for proceeding with the sea-based missile defense 
system, and the need for stockpile stewardship, all of which are going 
to require more, not less, funding of the defense budget. That is why 
at the end of the day, we are going to have to be willing to add money 
to the defense budget, and if that means it is prior to the 
administration's determination that funding is necessary, I say so be 
it; it is going to be necessary. Then we are going to have to get 
behind the President and support his long-term projects, which I know 
will, in the end, provide a very robust defense for the United States 
but which, in the meantime, we are going to have to be very watchful of 
with respect to the readiness both today and the preparation for that 
day that the new force of the 21st century has been developed.
  These are all matters we will discuss further in the future, but I 
think they are an important element in discussing this week the 
President's plan to strengthen our national security to ensure that our 
military remains the strongest in the world, capable of doing 
everything we ask of it. I know the President would demand no less.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I know our time is to run until 3:15 p.m. 
I ask unanimous consent that I be given 15 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been listening with a great deal of 
interest to you, the Senator from Arizona, as well as the Senator from 
New Hampshire. I do, as you mentioned, chair the Armed Services 
Subcommittee on Readiness. The Subcommittee on Readiness has 
jurisdiction over training, military construction, the BRAC process, 
and a few other things.
  It is important during this debate that we say it in terms of reality 
to get the attention of the American people. Since 1996, I have been 
saying that we in the United States of America are in the most 
threatened position we have been in in the history of this country. 
Many people do not believe that. Many people shrug their shoulders and 
say: This is not true, we are the strongest in the world.
  Yes, we may be the strongest in the world at this given time, but 
with the number of threats, it is questionable whether or not we would 
be able to defend ourselves adequately, certainly not meet the minimum 
expectations of the American people, which is defend America on two 
regional fronts.
  When I make this statement that we are in the most threatened 
position--we had before our committee less than a year ago George 
Tenet, who is the Director of Central Intelligence and the man who 
knows more about threats than anyone else in this Nation who was, 
incidentally, appointed by President Clinton. I asked George Tenet that 
question: Is it true what I have been saying since 1996, that we are in 
the most threatened position we have been in as a nation? He said: 
That's exactly right. That is from George Tenet.
  The reasons we are are threefold. It has been said on the floor but 
not put together in one thread.
  First of all, the obvious is that we are at one-half the force 
strength we were in 1991 at the end of the Persian Gulf war. What I am 
saying is we are one-half the force strength--that can be quantified--
one-half the Army divisions, one-half the tactical air wings, one-half 
the ships.
  Talking about ships, we were cut down from a 600-ship Navy to a 300-
ship Navy. We saw the tragedy that took place in Yemen with the U.S.S. 
Cole. When you stop and think about it, some of the ships that were 
taken out when we downsized the Navy were the oilers, the tankers that 
refuel our ships at sea.
  We send our fleets from the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, 
down the Red Sea, turn left and go up the Arabian Sea to the Persian 
Gulf. That is 5,000 miles. We have to have refueling capacity.
  After the Yemen tragedy, I could not find one vice admiral who did 
not say if we had not taken out of service at least two of those 
refuelers, we would have

[[Page S1257]]

refueled at sea, and those sailors would be alive today. We are at one-
half force strength. At the same time, we have more than tripled our 
number of deployments around the world. I might add, these are places 
where I contend we don't have national security strategic interests at 
stake.
  In November of 1995, in this Chamber, we were debating whether or not 
to go into Bosnia. We said on this floor, it is easy to go in; it is 
hard to get out. We had a resolution of disapproval. It wasn't until 
President Clinton said: I guarantee if you vote down that resolution of 
disapproval, we will send the troops over there and they will all be 
home for Christmas, 1996. Guess what. They are still there.
  It will be very difficult to get them out if the same thing happened 
in Kosovo. Regarding the threat in the Persian Gulf, just to handle the 
logistics of a war if it should break out in the Persian Gulf, we would 
have to be 100-percent dependent upon our Guard and Reserve to take 
care of the defense of this Nation. This is very difficult because the 
Guard and Reserve components also are down in numbers because of the 
retention problems we have.
  That is serious. When you take that and the number of deployments, 
along with one-half force strength, the third component is we don't 
have a national missile defense system. Sometimes, I say it is handy 
not to be an attorney in this body because when I read the ABM Treaty 
that was passed, introduced by the Republicans, back in 1972, between 
two great superpowers, the U.S.S.R. and the United States, I contend 
that doesn't exist anymore. Yet that is the very thing that has been 
used for the last 8 years by our previous President to keep us from 
deploying a national missile defense system.
  In 1983, we made the decision we were going to put one into effect. 
We were online to do that until this last administration came in.
  Next, I think it is important to realize this euphoric assumption 
that many have--and the press does not discourage this notion; it might 
be our force strength is down, our deployments are up--we don't have a 
national missile defense system, but there is no threat out there in 
terms of a national missile defense. Virtually every country out there 
has weapons of mass destruction. Many countries have missiles that will 
reach the United States of America.
  Take China, for example. If they fired a missile, it would take 35 
minutes to get here. We have nothing in our arsenal to stop that 
missile from hitting an American city. Compare my State of Oklahoma and 
the terrible disaster, the tragedy that took place. The smallest 
nuclear warhead known to man is 1,000 times greater in explosive power. 
Think about that. China has missiles that can reach here. Do other 
countries besides Russia, North Korea, and China have the missile? We 
don't know for sure. They are trading technology and trading systems 
with countries such as Iran and Iraq, Serbia, Libya, Pakistan, and 
others. The one thing they have in common is they don't like us. We 
have a serious problem.
  We don't have the modernization people think. I heard people say: At 
least we have the finest equipment in the world.

  I was proud of Gen. John Jumper not too many months ago when he came 
out and said: Right now we don't have anything in our arsenal as 
powerful in terms of air-to-air combat as the SU-27 and the SU-37. It 
is my understanding, if we go on with the SU-22, it is not as good as 
the SU-37 they are building today.
  Look at our training and retention. We see our pilots leaving. We see 
our midlevel NCOs leaving. I talked to pilots at Corpus Navy. Forty 
pilots said: It is not the competition outside; it is not the money. 
This country has lost its sense of mission. We are not getting the 
training we need.
  Our Air Force pilots cannot go into the desert and have red flag 
exercises because we don't have the money to do it. The Senator from 
Arizona talked about not having bullets, ammunition. We don't have 
bullets and ammunition. RPM accounts, the maintenance accounts, are 
supposed to be done immediately.
  I was at Fort Bragg the other day in a rainstorm. Our troops were 
covering up equipment with their bodies because we don't have the money 
to put a roof on the barracks down there. Our equipment is old. We 
found some M915 trucks had a million miles on the chassis. They were in 
bad repair.
  We see the cannibalization rate at Travis--C-5s sitting in the field 
with rotting parts. It is very labor intensive to get the parts back on 
and to uncrate new parts and replace them. In many areas, our mechanics 
are actually working 14 to 16 hours a day. Our retention is down.
  I can think of nothing more significant at this time than to start 
doing exactly what our new President said he would do when he was on 
the campaign trail; that is, assess the problems we have now and how 
can we put ourselves back into position, where, No. 1, we can 
adequately protect America from an incoming missile.
  As the Senator from Arizona said, we might have tried the same thing 
with the sea-based AEGIS system. We have $50 billion invested in 22 
AEGIS ships, but they cannot reach the upper tier. It costs little to 
get them up to knocking down incoming missiles and they can protect the 
troops in North Korea and both coasts in America. The opportunity is 
there.
  I wish we had proceeded with this 10 years ago. I believe we are on 
the right step. The single most significant thing we can do as a Senate 
and Congress and the President of the United States is to rebuild our 
defense system, to satisfy the minimum expectations of the American 
people; that is, to defend America on two regional fronts.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Kennedy pertaining to the introduction of S. 310 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S. 311 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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