[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 71 (Thursday, May 1, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H3000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               U.S. MILITARY READINESS HANGS BY A THREAD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, in matters of national security, 
experienced leaders never forget that the unexpected is always just 
around the corner and that danger is never far away. The Roman orator 
Cicero immortalized these ideas in his story about the Sword of 
Damocles.
  Damocles, a citizen of the ancient Greek city of Syracuse, wanted to 
be king for a day. The king agreed to this request, and Damocles 
feasted and reveled with wine and fine meals. Only after his 
merrymaking did Damocles discover that a razor-sharp sword, suspended 
by a single thread, hung over his head all day. Damocles was 
immediately cured of his desire to rule.
  When I consider the challenges confronting the U.S. national security 
today, I see not one but two swords of Damocles dangling above us. The 
first danger concerns the strain current operations place on U.S. 
military readiness, and the second concerns the deterioration of 
security and stability in Afghanistan.
  Military readiness ratings measure how prepared U.S. forces are to 
perform their assigned combat missions. Unfortunately, but not 
surprisingly, more than 6 years of war have resulted in serious 
readiness shortfalls, with our Army and Marine Corps ground forces 
experiencing the most acute problems. In spite of efforts to fill the 
gaps in equipment, training and personnel, readiness deficiencies 
serious enough to cause alarm last year have only continued to expand.
  Today, two-thirds of the Army's combat brigades in the United States 
are not ready for duty. Units in the U.S. are suffering from shortages 
of personnel, and units are preparing for deployment without having all 
of their assigned personnel or equipment during training. To fill 
shortfalls in Army personnel, the Navy and Air Force are supplying over 
20,000 troops to conduct ground force tasks such as convoy security and 
logistics support.
  While U.S. military forces are getting by, painfully, and performing 
today's missions despite readiness shortfalls, we are simply not 
prepared for the emergence of a new conflict. Experience tells me that 
we cannot assume another crisis won't come our way. In my 31 years in 
Congress, the U.S. has been involved in 12 significant military 
conflicts, none of which were predicted beforehand. Because we can't 
know with complete certainty what dangers lurk around the corner or 
when they might strike, we need the insurance policy military readiness 
provides for America's security.
  Our current readiness situation demands a massive investment in time, 
effort and money to restore our full capability. Of course, devoting 
the resources required to solve our readiness problems will force us to 
make painful tradeoffs with some elements of modernization, which is 
tomorrow's readiness. But with current readiness levels, this is a 
predicament our Nation cannot avoid. It is simply a cost we must bear.
  The second danger I worry about is the deterioration of security and 
stability in Afghanistan. For too long, the war in Iraq has 
overshadowed the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan. While the 
military effort there is actually a qualified success, the political 
effort at this point is not, and the benefits of economic progress are 
far too uneven. Too many Afghan citizens do not yet see tangible 
improvements in their daily lives. The effort in Afghanistan is not 
really reconstruction, but the creation of a stable, secure, and 
unified nation which has never existed.
  The recent decision to send an additional 3,200 marines to 
Afghanistan is a necessary and positive step in the right direction, 
but that alone will not be sufficient. This undertaking is gargantuan 
and requires a far more significant effort than the United States or 
our allies have been willing to commit. History will judge us very 
harshly if our focus and effort in Afghanistan is insufficient to the 
task. A failure of the mission there would not only damage our 
security, it would also seriously damage NATO.
  So how do we deal with these twin challenges? To start, we must focus 
our Nation's strategic priorities to find the right balance between the 
near-term needs and the long-term health of our military. We must 
address the imbalance in our deployment and use of troops overseas, 
because our readiness problems cannot be resolved as long as we 
continue to deploy in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq. A responsible 
redeployment of a large percentage of that force is a strategic 
necessity.
  In addition, we must do first things first by focusing on 
Afghanistan, just as in World War II we focused more of our resources 
on Germany and the war in Europe until that war was won. Finally, we 
must substantially increase the use of our soft power, our diplomatic, 
economic development, and strategic communications efforts in 
Afghanistan and around the world.
  We can and should receive much more help from our allies. Together, 
the U.S. and the international community must make the war in 
Afghanistan a top priority and provide the leadership, strategy, and 
resources necessary to ensure that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are 
destroyed for good and that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe 
harbor for terrorists.
  To his great credit, Secretary of Defense Gates has been arguing for 
several of these solutions. The truth is, though, that the U.S. has as 
much or more to lose in Afghanistan as any other nation, and the same 
would be true of whatever new conflicts emerge. Until our country is 
prepared to lead and act decisively, these problems will fester, and 
the threads holding up those twin swords will stretch ever thinner.

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