[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12504-12505]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      AMERICA'S MILITARY PROBLEMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak again about the dire 
situation in Iraq. A series of articles over the last week has drawn 
attention to two related issues, the slow training and improvement in 
quality of the Iraqi security forces, and the problems in recruitment 
in the American military, particularly in our Army that risk breaking 
our force.
  I fear, though, that without greater attention to these two problems, 
we are endangering not only our efforts in Iraq, but also our future 
military force.
  Mr. Speaker, Lieutenant General Dave Petraeus has had the mission of 
training the Iraqi security forces and turning them into the 
professional fighting force since last spring. He is a fine officer and 
a great leader.
  But, this is a mammoth task. And over a year, they have only produced 
three battalions, around 5,000 soldiers capable of conducting fully 
independent operations. This is disheartening. And then when we read 
stories like the ones in last week's Washington Post, of embedded 
American trainers describing the Iraqi trainers as preschoolers with 
guns, it is easy to think that American forces would have to stay in 
Iraq a long time to get those forces to the point where they can handle 
their security on their own.
  We have to speed up the process. Our NATO partners have promised to 
lend their efforts to training Iraqi security forces. They must get 
more engaged and soon. We have embedded trainers and transition teams 
with the Iraqis. We must commit even more trainees to the effort.
  If that means moving more Air Force and Navy personnel to Army 
billets to free them up for this mission, we need to do this. We need 
to accomplish this mission as quickly as possible because time is not 
on our side.
  Mr. Speaker, we are in a race against time. We are either going to 
lose the American people's support for this effort or break the Army. 
This month the Army's recruiting numbers are far below its goal, and it 
is an unmistakable trend. Although retention is holding, the toll is 
shaking the very foundation of American structure. Army marriages, 
broken under the strain of an unsustainable operations tempo are 
failing at an ever increasing rate. This is a sure sign of more 
troubles ahead.
  To meet a critical need in the short term, the Army has reduced 
quality standards on its accessions. It is retaining problematic 
recruits and has relaxed commissioning qualifications for its officers. 
Anybody with a sense of history can understand the inherent risk in 
these policies, and they strike me as unwise.
  Additionally, Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Army will soon 
approach Congress for authority to offer enlistment bonuses of up to 
$40,000. That is a huge sum. And while I support it, I am doubtful it 
will have the effect the Army is looking for.
  I wonder how long we can continue throwing money at this recruiting 
problem. I have always been a proud supporter of our troops. I have 
advocated pay raises for our service members and benefit increases for 
their families. I have done this for years. No one has been more 
consistent than I in calling for increased end strength, which I think 
would have alleviated many of these problems had they been enacted in a 
timely manner.
  I cannot fault the Army for using everything in its power to attack 
the manpower challenge, but it is not the Army's problem it is the 
Nation's problem. Yesterday I sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense 
laying out the problem, which I would like to place in the Record at 
this time.
  In this letter I urged the Secretary to develop a comprehensive 
vision of how the Department of Defense will approach the Army's 
crisis, and let him know that I would put out a call of my own to the 
youth of this Nation. We must not break the American support

[[Page 12505]]

for our military. We must renew it by inspiring young people across our 
Nation to serve.
  We cannot inspire that service by appealing to action in Iraq alone; 
it is defending our Nation from future threats and keeping our military 
the strongest in the world that may inspire their best. Along with the 
enlistment bonuses, they need a national call to service from our 
leaders that inspires them to keep our Nation and our military strong 
beyond Iraq. That will see us through the current fight and help us 
deter any future threat.

                                      Committee on Armed Services,


                                     House of Representatives,

                                    Washington, DC, June 13, 2005.
     Hon. Donald L. Rumsfeld,
     Secretary of Defense,
     The Pentagon, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Secretary: It is clear to me the most important 
     key to our success in Iraq is the development of the Iraqi 
     security forces, and the infrastructure that supports and 
     sustains them. I know you share that assessment. However, I 
     recently sat through a briefing by the Joint Staff on the 
     subject, and while we are making progress, it is painfully 
     slow indeed. We have no choice but to accelerate the training 
     of Iraqi forces so that we can hand the mission off to them 
     as soon as possible. It is a race against time: either the 
     American people will sour on this war and demand our 
     withdrawal prematurely, or the American Army will break.
       Iraq now represents a crisis that didn't exist when we 
     began the war two years ago. Even as public support for the 
     war ebbs lower and lower, the United States Army is on the 
     brink of collapsing. Indeed, it may be that serious damage 
     has been done to it already. In any case, it will not recover 
     fully for years, and that is a national security threat we 
     can ill afford.
       This month, the Army's recruiting numbers are far below its 
     goal, and this is an unmistakable trend. Although retention 
     is holding, the toll is shaking the very foundation of 
     American social structure. Army marriages, broken under the 
     strain of an unsustainable operations tempo, are failing at 
     an ever increasing rate. That is a sure sign of more troubles 
     ahead.
       To meet a critical need in !the short term, the Army has 
     reduced quality standards on its accessions. It is retaining 
     problematic recruits and relaxed commissioning qualifications 
     for its officers. Anybody with a sense of history can 
     understand the inherent risk in these policies, and they 
     strike me as unwise. Additionally, I understand that the Army 
     will soon approach Congress for authority to offer enlistment 
     bonuses of up to $40,000. That is a huge sum, and while I 
     support it, I am doubtful it will have the effect the Army is 
     looking for.
       I wonder how long we can continue throwing money at this 
     recruiting problem. It is not the expense, because we can pay 
     the cost if we align our national priorities properly. 
     Instead, it is about precedents and principles. This 
     insurgency is essentially a war of ideologies and therefore 
     one must ask: What message do we send to our enemy when they 
     can recruit suicide bombers as fast as they need them but we 
     cannot entice our young men and women to serve without large 
     sums of cash up front?
       Mr. Secretary, as you know, I have always been a proud 
     supporter of our troops; I have advocated pay raises for our 
     service members and benefit increases their families for 
     years. No one has been more consistent than I in calling for 
     increased endstrength, which I think would have alleviated a 
     many of these problems, had they been enacted in a timely 
     manner. I cannot fault the Army for using everything in its 
     power to attack this manpower challenge, but this is not the 
     Army's problem. It is the nation's problem.
       I do not believe the youth of America is unwilling or 
     incapable of serving their country for reasons other than a 
     large bonus, but I think their country is not making a clear 
     and compelling argument about why they should. Therefore, Mr. 
     Secretary, I urge you to develop a comprehensive vision of 
     how the Department of Defense will approach the Army's 
     crisis.
       In the absence of a unifying national message urging young 
     Americans to consider military service, I will develop my 
     own, and I will not miss an opportunity to deliver it. 
     Frankly, it is becoming easier for me to articulate why it is 
     important that we not lose in Iraq than it is to describe why 
     we must win. It is not just about the dangers of losing a 
     nation with the potential for representative self-government 
     after so many years of tyranny, or about allowing a viper's 
     nest of terrorism to flourish in the heart of the Middle 
     East. Those reasons are powerful geopolitical considerations, 
     but there are other compelling reasons for America as well.
       Essentially, my message to these young people will be this: 
     the issue is no longer just about what is good for the war in 
     Iraq--this is about what is good for the long term health and 
     security of our nation. While our nation's policies in Iraq 
     have been poorly formulated at the strategic level by our 
     civilian leadership--Congress included--the policy guidance 
     has been superbly executed at lower levels by our military. 
     Right now, the strength of our national effort is in the high 
     quality of our military forces. We need high quality people 
     to continue to step up to serve. If they will not, the 
     military we built out of the ashes following the Vietnam war 
     into the finest force in history will atrophy to the point 
     where it will be unready to fight the next time it is called 
     upon--whether that is responding to a terrorist attack, 
     deterring a conflict on the Korean Peninsula or across the 
     Taiwan Strait, or somewhere else we can't yet foresee. I 
     sincerely hope that the Department of Defense will do 
     everything it can to raise this issue to the forefront of the 
     national consciousness.
       Mr. Secretary, before the war in Iraq began I sent the 
     President two letters outlining my concerns about how the war 
     was going to be conducted and how the aftermath would be 
     handled. Sadly, many of my concerns regarding the aftermath 
     have been realized. I was right then, and I am right now. The 
     training of the Iraqi security forces must take on even 
     greater urgency, and we must act to avoid the concerns I have 
     described in this letter.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Ike Skelton,
     Ranking Democrat.

                          ____________________