[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 11, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H4963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ARMY RECRUITMENT

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  As the cost of the war in Iraq climbs past $300 billion, and there 
are estimates that suggest the total financial cost will far exceed $1 
trillion, there is another cost that is less measurable but no less 
significant: that is the stress on the military itself and the 
consequences for our fighting men and women, for innocent Iraqis, and 
the capacity of our Armed Forces far into the future.
  The Pentagon has announced that the Army has met its recruiting goals 
for the 13th consecutive month, but we are seeing an erosion in the 
quality of recruits in our Armed Forces as more and more young 
Americans who disagree with what we are doing in Iraq have chosen to 
stay away. In order to meet recruiting targets, the Army has relaxed 
restrictions against high school dropouts and have started letting in 
more applicants who score in the lowest third on the Armed Forces 
aptitude test, a group known as category 4 recruits. Since the mid 
1980s, category 4 recruits were kept, as a matter of policy, to less 
than 2 percent of all recruits. But by the end of 2005, the percentage 
of recruits who fell under this lowest category has reached double 
digits.
  In my district, not only has the Army lowered its standards but 
recruiters have been pushed to violate the remaining standards in order 
to meet these recruiting targets. We have had two examples of where 
autistic young men have been recruited into the Army despite the 
regulations. As I have discussed on the floor of the House how 
outrageous this was, indeed, one of these young men did not even know 
that there was a war going on in Iraq. This all has terrible 
consequences for our efforts against the global war on terror.
  This weekend's papers were full of articles and editorials about the 
role that our lowered recruiting standards may have played in the 
recent spate of reports of servicemembers being accused of atrocities 
in Iraq. What does this tell us about our efforts to eliminate the 
insurgency and win the hearts and minds of people in the Middle East?
  We must also consider the long-term cost to our national security and 
to the military itself. These lower standards are impacting the Army's 
capacities and will continue to do so for at least a generation into 
the future.
  There was a RAND Corporation study last fall that showed replacing a 
gunner who had scored 3A on the aptitude test with one who scored that 
category 4 that I mentioned a moment ago, reduced the chances of 
hitting targets by 34 percent. In another study, 84 three-man teams 
from the Army's active duty signal battalions were given the task of 
making a communications system operational, what you need to do in a 
theater of battle. Teams consisting of the category 3A had a 67 percent 
chance of succeeding. Those with category 4 personnel had only a 29 
percent chance. More than two-thirds to barely more than a quarter.
  There is also damage to the reputation of the good name of the United 
States military. We are intensely proud of the young men and women who 
have served under such difficult circumstances. It is not fair for 
their hard work and heroic efforts to be tainted by the action of 
others or for their job to be made more difficult or more dangerous due 
to substandard soldiers who are finding their way into the Armed 
Forces. When we lower recruitment standards or recruit those who have 
no business in the military at all, the consequences will be felt by 
our military in Iraq today and by the entire Nation for years to come.
  One of the reasons it is imperative to have a sensible plan to scale 
down and transition our activities in Iraq, handing them over to the 
Iraqis, themselves, is to stop this erosion of our military capacity 
that has occurred because of the sadly inept management of the 
occupation by this administration and the Secretary of Defense. There 
was never a doubt about our winning the war in Iraq. They just weren't 
prepared to win the peace.
  Our young men and women in the armed services deserve for us to get 
it right, because their lives are at stake. And we owe it to every 
American, because there are dangerous people around the world and the 
integrity of the military is critical to our fight to protect America.

                          ____________________