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Elizabeth Farnsworth discusses the new defense plan with two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan.

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JIM LEHRER: The new defense plan is our lead story for a second night in a row. Last night Defense Sec. Cohen and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Shalikashvili were here to explain the results of their Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR. They took it before the Senate Armed Services Committee today. Our coverage begins with this report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: Defense Secretary William Cohen and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General John Shalikashvili used the Senate Armed Services Committee as the first congressional forum to discuss their long-range military plan. Sec. Cohen acknowledged immediately he expects Congress to work its own will with the plan he released yesterday.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: This is not a document that has been etched on Mt. Sinai and handed down as if they are stone tablets which must be accepted without any modification or, indeed, any integration coming from the Congress because ultimately, this is a joint endeavor.

KWAME HOLMAN: The so-called Quadrennial Review recommends continuing the assumption the U.S. must be capable of fighting two major regional wars simultaneously, most likely in the Persian Gulf and the Korean Peninsula. But it would achieve that goal with a smaller military. The plan calls for personnel cuts numbering 90,000 on active duty, 65,000 reservists, and 160,000 civilians, slowing procurement of combat aircraft, reducing the number of surface ships and submarines by 35, and two more rounds of base closings. The money saved there would go toward increased weapons modernization to create a leaner, more versatile, and high-tech military able to respond quickly to crises around the world. Secretary Cohen responded to early criticism. The plan still leaves the military too large for today's needs.

SEC. WILLIAM COHEN: With respect to the charge that this is simply Cold War thinking, let me indicate to you that I think that the charge is without merit. Since 1985, we have seen a reduction of some 40 percent in the budget for national defense spending. We have seen a reduction of nearly 1/3 of our force structure, and assuming that some aspects of the QDR are implemented, we will go to 36 percent of a reduction in the force structure. We have seen a 67 percent decline in procurement, and that's the chart that you and I used to look at each year with increasing skepticism and doubt. So now we have to face up to the fact that if we're going to prepare for the future, we have got to squeeze something. And therein lies the rub.

KWAME HOLMAN: Republican Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho claimed cuts in the military's support infrastructure aren't being shared across the board in the Quadrennial Defense Review.

SEN. DIRK KEMPTHORNE, (R) Idaho: The QDR seems to put pressure on the Congress to reduce the size of the National Guard, solve the depot maintenance issues, enact two more rounds of base closures, while the services were not asked to, for example, terminate a major weapons system, tackle rolls admission, redundancy, address some of the force structure. Does this review share the political pain?

SEC. WILLIAM COHEN: Well, it's not designed to share political pain. It's designed to produce the best possible force that we can for the future. If I were looking for a way to avoid political pain, I obviously would not recommend further BRAC rounds. I wouldn't recommend any of these items, including any reductions in the guard, which tend to be very popular. But I wasn't looking to be popular on this. I'm trying to recommend to you--and ultimately again you have to be a full partner in this process, what we believe to be the--to produce the best possible fighting force.

KWAME HOLMAN: When Congress called on the Pentagon to produce a Quadrennial Defense Review, it also charged a nine-member panel of outside military experts to review the Pentagon's plan. That panel's final report is due in December.

JIM LEHRER: Now to what two key Senators think of the Pentagon plan and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And joining us are two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. John McCain is a Republican from Arizona and Carl Levin is a Democrat from Michigan. Thanks for being with us. Sen. McCain, in your view, does this plan offer the right blueprint for the U.S. military in the near future?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN, (R) Arizona: I think generally it does, Elizabeth. I think that there is obviously some tough choices that are going to be made down the road because we're not going to see increases in defense spending. I think that Congress is going to have to act on base closing commission in my view because of the imbalance between the support structure and the fighting forces, and I think we need to also make it clear that we should do this depot maintenance thing in what saves the taxpayer the most money, but I think that Sec. Cohen is off to a good start, and he is going to have to make some more tough decisions, but he recognizes it's going to have to be done in partnership with the Congress.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Senator McCain, you said--I believe you said in the hearings today that you're concerned the armed forces envisioned under the Quadrennial Review force will not be adequately equipped to carry out our strategy. What did you mean?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, I see a derogation in readiness. I see us losing many of our outstanding young pilots. I see the operations tempo keeping these young men and women away from home for an inordinate length of time, which has an impact on morale and readiness. And at the same time as you saw in the earlier clip, our modernization of the force has dropped by over 60 percent. So I believe that we are facing some significant difficulties which are going to--as I mentioned earlier--are going to force some more hard choices.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. We'll come back to that in a minute. Senator Levin, what's your view? Do you think that this is the right blueprint?

SEN. CARL LEVIN, (D) Michigan: I think it's a fair start on a blueprint. Again, we ought to remember this is just a starting point. This isn't the finishing point. There's a citizens panel, as you mentioned, which is going to take a look at it. There were very few major changes in this blueprint, and that surprised a number of people, including myself, who expected a few more major changes either in force structure, there were no major changes, same number of divisions, same number of air wings, no major weapons systems terminated, for instance, but, nonetheless, I give Sec. Cohen a lot of credit. He jumped into the middle of this thing. He's only had a few months, and I think he's done a good, comprehensive job of at least looking at the various problems, even though he did not recommend a number of major changes, and that puts more pressure on our panel, the national citizens panel, to take a creative look. But Congress has got some obligation here too, as Sen. McCain is the first to point out. I mean, we can't ask the Pentagon to be creative or that citizens panel to be creative if we ourselves are unwilling to look, for instance, at another few rounds of base closings. Sure, they're painful, but we've got more structure than we need. We've had 35 percent reduction in the number of personnel but only a 20 percent reduction in the number of bases, so we've got to close some more bases if we're going to have the money to do the kind of modernization which we need and which Sen. McCain also pointed out.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sen. McCain, you mentioned the problems you see. You talked about the readiness problems. This is something you've been worried about for some time, so this proceeds this review, but in your--in your view, the report doesn't deal with it properly, is that right? And describe what you mean too by the readiness problem.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, as I say, you know, for example, our peacekeeping missions are an enormous drain. Last time I heard I think it was around 8 billion, is that right, Carl, for the Bosnia effort? That all comes out of defense. The young men and women that we have are staying longer and longer overseas in the operations away from their homes and families, so at the same time we have not made some of the tough decisions. For example, I think when I talk about tough decisions, we now are looking at three fighter aircraft in the future, the Air Force one, the Joint Service one, and the Navy one. At some point I believe we're going to have to cancel one of those, but--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Rather than just diminish them as the review recommended.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Exactly. Exactly, because, Elizabeth, as you know and we all know, when you reduce the number that you acquire, you increase the unit cost dramatically to the point where it becomes--suffer what we call sticker shock. But I think, as Carl said, that Sen. Cohen laid out some markers and some challenges for the Congress and for the Defense Department, and we're going to have to make some of those very difficult decisions. But right now, for example, reductions in the Guard and reserve forces, which Sen. Cohen is advocating, are going to cause a lot of squawking from governors and from legislators and members of Congress. So I think he took some first steps but there's a rough road that lies ahead of us.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sen. Levin, what about that? Do you think that the cuts in, for example, the reserves and also the cuts in the active duty forces, reserve and also civilians, are also properly laid out in this report?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: We have to be willing to look at all of these cuts and even more so in my opinion if we're going to modernize enough to make sure that whatever size force we have in the future has got absolutely the best equipment possible. I think there are a number of other assumptions which we have to challenge, including we have to be able to fight two major regional wars at one time, or nearly at one time. I mean, Iraq is half of the power that it used to be. We pre-positioned equipment there, and hopefully, Saudi Arabia has learned some things from the Gulf War, so I think there are certain assumptions in this Quadrennial Review which really require some scrutiny.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Sen. McCain, what about that, the view that's in the report that we have to fight two regional wars?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, first of all, I think it's a false assumption, because we certainly can't along the lines that we could several years ago, and we all know that. So it's kind of the emperor has no clothes kind of a situation, but second of all, the threats, as Carl mentioned, have diminished in some respects, but they have increased in others, in my view. For example, the emergence of China as not an adversary but certainly worsening relations, which is possible, is something that we have to take into consideration, but I really believe that there are going to be the tough decisions that lie ahead of us, and if Sen. Cohen had made some of those very tough decisions now, he may have had difficulty getting very modest proposals through, which I think he has a good shot at getting done.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So I'm interested that you both see this as an--as a first step; that it's a good first step. Let me ask you both, starting with you, Sen. Levin, what happens next? How does Congress now shape this in a way that you, for example, would like it to be shaped? What happens next?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, first, we need to know from them what do they recommend in terms of implementation in this year's budget because it's unclear as to whether or not any pieces of this Quadrennial Review are going to be translated into our current budget discussions on this upcoming defense bill. So that's No. 1. Secondly, I think we ought to--we're going to have to act immediately on base closing. If there's going to be another round of base closing in 1999 and a second additional round in 2001, we must act this year to do--to put that in motion. And that's going to be one of the most contentious issues. And we have to resolve that in this year's budget. So there are some pieces of this Quadrennial Review which we should be debating promptly and then other parts the citizens panel will be giving us recommendations in December and as to the excess infrastructure and the excess overhead which we have, the large amount of support forces that we have compared to the combat forces that we have. Sec. Cohen has put into place another panel which is going to give us recommendations on that hopefully in time for this year's budget consideration.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Sen. McCain, still on that subject, what happens next, where do you think we'll be a year from now on this? SEN. JOHN McCAIN: What I hope a year from now is we've had the base closing evolution in motion, also we have done away with this arcane requirement that a certain amount of work be done at military depots, which is far more expensive than contracting out to some civilians, which is an enormous drain. I also hope that we will have reduced the civilian side that Sen. Cohen addressed today in the Defense Department which has, by the way, been cut very small, very lightly as compared with the uniform military, and I hope that we have now--will know a year from now a little more about these three tactical aircraft as to which is the best path for us to proceed in, and all of those will be very difficult.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you predict in the months to come a lot of debate over this. On your side of the aisle, are Republicans fairly united about these issues?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Look, I don't like to be too hard on my colleagues, and sometimes I am, and I admit to being guilty of that, but I see a degree of parochialism here as far as some of these reductions and cutbacks and resistance to base closing when the numbers are obvious that makes me sometimes a little embarrassed because we've got to appeal to acting in what's good for the nation, rather than what's good for Arizona or Michigan.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Sen. Levin, how about your side of the aisle, is there some agreement on the future of the military?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: There will be a healthy debate, I think, but in addition to making sure that we act out of the national interest and not of a parochial interest and Sen. McCain has been really a fighter and very strong voice in terms of the need to do that, and I commend him for it, we've got to put some real pressure on allies. They have a responsibility here too, and they're downsizing dramatically, which would put pressure on us if we tolerate it, so we've got to--in the months ahead--let our allies in NATO and elsewhere know that we are going to expect that they're going to carry their share of the load. And that was not, I don't think adequately focused on either yet in this Quadrennial Review.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I agree.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sen. Levin and Sen. McCain, thanks for being with us.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Thank you.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Thank you.

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