[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25882-25883]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     ARMY DIVISIONS WERE DECREASED, NOT INCREASED, UNDER DEMOCRAT 
                             ADMINISTRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, we have some very serious issues on the 
table during this national campaign, one that involves truly all the 
Members of the House of Representatives, many members of the Senate 
and, of course, the Presidential candidates. In the last debate between 
Vice President Gore and Governor Bush, Vice President Gore said that he 
had increased a number of Army divisions.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for the American people to know 
that is not the case. When the Clinton-Gore administration took over in 
January of 1993, we had 14 Army divisions.

                              {time}  1630

  Today, we only have 10. So under President or Vice President Gore's 
leadership, along with that of President Clinton, we have actually cut 
the Army to 10 divisions; we have not increased it. So somewhere along 
the line he inadvertently invented four U.S. Army divisions.
  Mr. Speaker, along with slashing the size of the Army, this 
administration has, I think, cut the Navy to 316 ships from 546 ships. 
That is a cut of almost

[[Page 25883]]

40 percent. They have cut the Air Force from 24 active fighter airwings 
to only 13. It is time to rebuild national security.
  The interesting thing about these massive cuts in force structure, 
meaning we have about 60 percent of the military that we had when this 
administration took over, is that generally speaking, one would expect, 
when we cut a sports organization or we cut a business organization, we 
would think that when we cut it down in size, the half that one has 
left, if one cuts it in half, is going to be better prepared, better 
equipped and better trained than the big operation that one had 
earlier. That core should be a good, highly-efficient, highly-prepared 
operating core, whether it is in sports or in business or in the 
military world.
  Well, the sad thing about this cut in our military force structure, 
cutting the Army from 18 to 10 division, cutting our fighter airwings 
from 24 to 13, and cutting our Navy from 546 ships to only 316 ships, 
the tragedy is, the small military we have today after these slashes is 
not as prepared as the big military that we had during Desert Storm. 
The chief of staff of the Army has told us that we are now some $3 
billion short on ammunition for the Army. The Marine Corps has told us 
that they are $200 million short on ammunition. The Air Force chief of 
staff has told us that we are roughly 50 percent short on precision 
munitions. Those are the munitions that we have, where instead of 
carpet-bombing a bridge, one can fly in and put one precision munition, 
very, very accurate, on one strut of that bridge and knock the bridge 
down. It is a highly-efficient way to project American power.
  So the Air Force told us they have cut those munitions down to the 
point where they only have 50 percent of what they need. The Navy has 
informed us that they only have 50 percent of their requirement for 
Tomahawk cruise missiles. Those cruise missiles are what we use to go 
into an area that is heavily defended, where if we send pilots in to 
drop bombs out of planes, we might lose some of those pilots. So those 
cruise missiles, those Tomahawks are very valuable; but today we only 
have 50 percent, according to the Navy, of what we need.
  Now, along with that, we see the mission capability rate of our 
frontline fighter aircraft just dropping off the cliff. Mission 
capability rate is how many of our aircraft work. If I ask my neighbor, 
what is your mission capability rate of your cars and he said, a minute 
and I will tell you, and he went outside and he tried to start them, 
and he had two cars and only one started, he would come back in and 
say, it is 50 percent, only one of the two cars starts.
  Well, the mission capability rate for our frontline fighters, the F-
15E and the F-16, has dropped into the 70 percent rate. That means that 
it has dropped about 10 points from the 83 percent-or-so mission 
capability rate to an average of about 72, 73 percent. That means out 
of 100 aircraft, 30 of them cannot get off the ground and cannot go do 
their job. So now there is this shortage of fighter airwings, these 13 
fighter airwings we have, are only about 70 percent ready to go. That 
means we really only have about nine airwings that really are ready to 
go out and engage the enemy.
  So Mr. Gore has not presided over a resurrection of the U.S. 
military; he has presided over a decline.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that help is on the way.

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