MILITARY READINESS

	September 27, 2000
	Kwame Holman reports on today's congressional hearings on the state of the military.

KWAME HOLMAN: The military's chiefs of staff and their chairman, General Henry Shelton, went before the Senate Armed Services Committee today to lay out what they think it will take to carry out the nation's missions in the near future. General Shelton said for the time being, the military is ready to go. GEN. HARRY SHELTON, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Today, our forward-deployed and our first-to-fight forces are trained and ready, as the nation witnessed during Operation Desert Fox in 1998, and also in Operation Allied Force last year. And they are also ready for any lesser contingency. This readiness capability has repeatedly been demonstrated during the past year in the Balkans, in Southwest Asia in East Timor, and in other operations and exercises around the world. KWAME HOLMAN: The heads of the four military branches agreed with their chairman's short-term outlook, but one by one forecast problems for the long term, particularly for the military's ability to fight two wars nearly simultaneously. Army General Eric Shinseki. GEN. ERIC SHINSEKI, Army Chief of Staff: First, we have diverted soldiers from other organizations to fill our high- priority war-fighting formations. Second, we have for years mortgaged our future readiness, this modernization effort, in order to assure that our soldiers had in the near term what it takes to fight and win decisively. KWAME HOLMAN: Admiral Vernon Clark, chief of naval operations, talked about the Navy's aging fleet. ADMIRAL VERNON CLARK, Chief of Naval Operations: We are procuring desperately needed new combat aircraft, but not at the rate necessary to sustain the force required for the future. KWAME HOLMAN: The Air Force's General Michael Ryan. GEN. MICHAEL RYAN, Air Force Chief of Staff: Combat unit readiness has dropped well over 20%, and our mission capability rates on our aircraft are down by 10% over the last decade. These decreases in readiness can be attributed to past under funding of spares, high operations tempo, loss of experienced airmen, and an aging aircraft fleet. KWAME HOLMAN: Marine Commandant James Jones. GEN. JAMES JONES, Marine Corps Commandant: Today's requirement mandates that we work very hard to not only provide equipment, but to pay attention to other important aspects of readiness, such as family stability, housing, spousal support, quality of life issues, health care, education, and a multitude of other societal realities that were not as evident 20 years ago. KWAME HOLMAN: The committee's top Democrat, Carl Levin, blamed some of the shortfall on the propensity of members of Congress to fund new ships and aircraft, popular back home, but often not even requested by the Pentagon. SEN. CARL LEVIN, (D) Michigan: We are spending too much money on things that we don't need, and that's one of the reasons, at least, that there are shortfalls in areas that we do need, and Congress carries a significant responsibility for that. KWAME HOLMAN: None of the witnesses volunteered answers to Levin's assertion. Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions wanted to know if money to keep the military ready to fight is coming at the expense of other military accounts. SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, (R) Alabama: Have we, as a nation, General Shelton, taken money from modernization, from infrastructure, from procurement, from science and technology, to maintain current readiness? GEN. HENRY SHELTON: Senator sessions, the answer, as I gave you in my statement, I think, is yes, because of the increase in the use of the force, the aging equipment, the increased cost of the operational tempo, basically we have had to pull money that could have otherwise gone into the modernization accounts back in to maintain current readiness and maintain the level we're at today. SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: It's creating a crisis for us, is that correct? ADMIRAL VERNON CLARK: If you look at... You characterize this in terms of all of the accounts, and if you say that it is... We took readiness funds out of modernization, or out of recapitalization, the fact is there we have been funding the readiness account at a percentage of the requirement, and we are not meeting the recapitalization challenge either. KWAME HOLMAN: But Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed reminded the service chiefs that money for readiness added to last year's budget has yet to take effect. SEN. JACK REED, (D) Rhode Island: You have as a bottom line statement that the large FY '00 investment is not yet realized. Are we to assume that those trend lines you show will actually keep improving over the next several years in terms of readiness, so that not only are we ready today, but in the foreseeable future that readiness will improve? GEN. HENRY SHELTON: We anticipate that happening, Senator Reed, certainly in the area of spare parts, things that have to be procured that have not had a chance as a result of the... Even going back to the '99 supplemental, or to the '99 budget, some of that is just starting to come in now. In fact, in March of this year is when some of the first parts would arrive from that '00 budget. SEN. JACK REED: So we're all today trying to fit these facts into a coherent picture of the situation. So I assume, based on what you've said and your colleagues have said, that we're ready today, and you've just indicated that that readiness is likely to improve. Is that an accurate statement? GEN. HENRY SHELTON: We are ready today with our first to deploy, first-to-fight forces. And as we... As I indicated, there are other areas in these... What I would call the combat service, combat service support, units that are outside of those first-to-fight forces that still will need additional funding in order to get them up to where they are. and that is where we're falling... fallen a little short, even as we have pulled funds from what otherwise could have gone into modernization. KWAME HOLMAN: As a result, General Shelton said significant new funds for military readiness will be needed, a task that will belong to the next session of Congress and the new President.