[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[December 1, 1994]
[Pages 2130-2132]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Defense Readiness and an Exchange With Reporters
December 1, 1994

    The President. Good afternoon. Secretary Perry, General 
Shalikashvili, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I have pledged that 
throughout the life of this administration, our military will remain the 
best trained, the best equipped, the best prepared fighting force on 
Earth. I'm happy to be here today with Secretary Perry and with the 
Joint Chiefs to reinforce that commitment and to announce a new 
initiative to ensure military readiness and to give our military and 
their families the support they deserve.
    During our first year in office, we undertook a fundamental review 
from the bottom up of our Nation's defense capacity and our strategy. 
Building on the efforts of the previous administration and bipartisan 
support in the Congress, we continue to restructure our Nation's 
military forces to meet the challenges to American leadership in the 
post-cold-war era. I directed that our Armed Forces be ready to face two 
major regional conflicts occurring almost simultaneously. Since then, I 
have repeatedly resisted calls to cut our forces further, to cut our 
budget below the levels recommended in that bottom-up review, and I have 
drawn the line against further defense cuts.
    During these past 2 years, our military has time and again 
demonstrated its readiness and its war-fighting and peacekeeping 
capabilities. From Korea to Macedonia to Rwanda and Haiti, we have 
placed great burdens on our men and women in uniform, and they have 
responded magnificently. They have demonstrated a truly outstanding 
ability to deploy quickly, provide security, and to help ensure 
stability.
    When our forces deployed with extraordinary speed and efficiency to 
the Persian Gulf in October, Saddam Hussein got the message. We 
decisively deterred the Iraqi threat to the region's security. And when 
our armed services, cooperating in an unprecedented fashion, stood ready 
to back up our diplomatic efforts in Haiti, we helped set the stage for 
restoration of democracy in that nation.
    Whether our forces are engaged in combat, acting as peacekeepers, or 
delivering humanitarian assistance, we must continue to review their 
requirements, provide adequate funding, and keep our military edge. 
Secretary Perry and I have repeatedly stated that our number one 
commitment is to the readiness and well-being of our men and women in 
uniform.
    I'm announcing today a five-part initiative to ensure that our Armed 
Forces receive the resources and the support they need to continue their 
high standard of performance. First, I intend to ask Congress to add an 
additional $25 billion to our planned defense budgets over the next 6 
years. Second, I will seek the full pay raise allowed by law for our 
uniformed military through the turn of the century. Third, I will fully 
support other quality-of-life initiatives which were outlined by 
Secretary Perry last

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month. We will spend what is required to ensure that our military live 
in adequate housing and are provided the necessary child care and 
receive the support they and their families need to serve our Nation. 
Fourth, I will ask the Congress to provide for real growth in the 
defense budget during the last 2 years of our next 6-year plan to help 
ensure that the American military enters the 21st century with the most 
modern equipment available. And finally, we will send to Congress with 
our budget next year an emergency supplemental funding for the current 
fiscal year to reimburse the military for its unanticipated expenditures 
with the operations in the Gulf, the Adriatic, Haiti, and elsewhere and 
to protect us from dipping into important readiness funding. These funds 
will enable us to maintain the readiness and training we will need to 
accomplish our missions in the coming year.

    I urge Congress to quickly approve this supplemental request so that 
we do not face the kind of problems we confronted this fall when 
Congress delayed its approval of the last supplemental funding request.

    These actions I'm announcing today reinforce our administration's 
commitment and my personal commitment to maintaining the highest 
training standards for our military, to preparing them to depart on 
missions around the world at a moment's notice. They will ensure that 
our men and women in uniform can be assured that their families are 
getting the kind of support they need and deserve. We ask much of our 
military, and we owe much to them in return.

    Our Armed Forces are the backbone of our national security strategy. 
They stand behind our efforts to maintain peace and security all around 
the world. I call on the new Congress to give these initiatives their 
full support.

    Thank you very much.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, are you ready to send U.S. ground troops to Bosnia 
to help in any evacuation of U.N. peacekeepers if that is necessary?

    The President. There has been no discussion of that, and the U.N. 
peacekeepers have not decided to leave Bosnia.

    Thank you.

Defense Readiness

    Q. Mr. President, some critics might argue that your action today is 
a passive admission that defense has been cut too much.

    The President. That's not right. What we have done--I'll remind you, 
we started out, when I became President--when I became President I said, 
we have a commitment to maintain readiness and the quality of life for 
our troops; we have a commitment to be able to meet our strategic 
mission, which is principally to be able to conduct two regional 
conflicts nearly simultaneously. We have reviewed that; we have managed 
that. In the last 2 years, we have also had significant costs for other 
things, as you know. And our military has performed very well in Haiti, 
in the Gulf, in dealing with the migration problems in Cuba, in Haiti, 
and in many, many other areas. We've also stepped up a lot of our 
operations in the Adriatic and in the area around Bosnia.

    So we have had a lot of unanticipated costs. And what we've tried to 
do is to look at this and then decide what it would take to maintain our 
readiness in the short term and in the long run. The short-term problems 
can be readily remedied by the emergency supplemental that I've asked 
for and by the budgetary changes that I am making. The long-term 
problems will require the adoption of this five-point plan.

    We are moving into the future with a very aggressive strategy. It is 
consistent with the commitments I made when I came here. And we have 
seen the military, frankly, have to deal with an amazing number and 
variety of unanticipated challenges. They have done so with great skill, 
but now they need the support that I think we ought to give them.

    And in this era when we are definitely going to continue to reduce 
the size of the budget, we are going to continue to cut Government, we 
are going to give the American people a leaner Government, I still 
believe the people of this country expect us to do right by our men and 
women in uniform and to maintain our readiness and preparedness and to 
plan for the future. And that's what this budget does. That's my job; 
that's the Secretary of Defense's job; that's the Joint Chiefs' job, and 
we're here doing it today.


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    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:54 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House.