Defense Writers Group

TRANSCRIPT Defense Writers Group A Project of the Center for Media & Security New York and Washington, D.C. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) Chairman, Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee October 27, 2010 THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. USERS ARE ADVISED TO CONSULT THEIR OWN TAPES OR NOTES OF THE SESSION IF ABSOLUTE VERIFICATION OF WORDING IS NEEDED. Q: Is there a logical rationale for keeping US Joint Forces open? A: [Inaudible] … to arrive at a conclusion. Having spent five years in the Pentagon, but also having been a committee counsel for four years before I was in the Pentagon, I am a strong believer in obtaining the facts and then analyzing the facts. One of the real breakdowns that I‟ve seen in the way that the Department of Defense communicates to those on the outside, whether it is the media or the people over in the Congress, is that they are not sharing a lot of the facts. Not only in this instance. I will explain a little bit more of my logic on what we‟re doing with JFCOM in a minute. But in a wide variety of issues. Let me give you a reference point. When I was committee counsel in the Congress—1977 to 1981—we worked with the Pentagon on a broad variety of issues. One of them was what was called the Carter Discharge Review Program, where President Carter had come in and he was going to upgrade 280,000 bad discharges from Vietnam. Blanket upgrades. DOD, we worked on legislation to focus this in a way that met with historical standards. We worked with DOD every day. DOD basically invented the Internet despite what some other people might allege. I could ask DOD a question and get data in one day. 1977. One day I said to them, we were having a debate on casualty statistics during the Vietnam War. Minority casualty statistics, et cetera, et cetera. I asked them one day, I‟d like a breakdown of the casualties in Vietnam by year, by service, by ethnicity. And the next day I had the printout. 1 When I came into the Senate this time, we had a whole series of issues with DOD where we were attempting to get data so that we could understand the logic of their position and how we might have our own position. The GI Bill is a good example of that. I have asked them — It took me a year to get the data in terms of first term attrition in enlistments. The Pentagon will give you the number on retention, first term retention. That‟s the number of people who finish an enlistment and then decide to reenlist. It took me a year to get that data. We had to go back to them over and over again before they understood that we knew what we were talking about, and it was a very important piece of data when you're trying to push forward the GI Bill because the data ended up showing that in spite of the fact they come over to the Armed Services Committee and they constantly are focusing on the career force—and we want to maintain a good career force— but the people who were not having the right attention paid to them were the citizen soldiers. And by the end of the year when we saw the data, at the time they gave us the data, it showed that 75 percent of those who enlist in the Army leave on or before the end of their first enlistment, 70 percent of the Marine Corps, and about half of the Navy and the Air Force. This was before the economic meltdown, but those are good generic numbers, and they‟re good for the country. But it took us a year. So we have a situation that I‟m trying to address with respect to how — This never would have happened when I was in the Pentagon. It never would have happened when I was Assistant Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the Navy. In fact I met every day for four years with [Defense Secretary Caspar W.] Cap Weinberger. He never would have let it happen. He would have been too concerned about what the ramifications would have been. And we had an aggressive media that wouldn‟t let it happen. So when this issue came up with respect to JFCOM we had no advance warning. I agree, I still strongly agree with [Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates that we need to start turning numbers around and look at them seriously. But to me, the starting point is: Let‟s examine the process. The process writ large. Not just the process on JFCOM. I told [Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm.] Mike Mullen this the day after the hearing when I had words with the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Logically my thought is if you‟re looking at reduction in the staff levels of your commands and in the Pentagon as well, you should start with some historic timelines. I‟m a writer by trade. I believe that the best way to address issues is to assemble facts. So we asked them in the middle of August, I would like to see a timeline on the staff levels at OSD and the military services, start with 1950 because when the National Security Act was created and the Office of Secretary of Defense was created, I think there were three Assistant Secretaries of Defense. No “Unders” [undersecretaries] in [Defense Secretary James V.] Forrestal‟s office when they first started. So we asked for historical data—which is easily obtained—to give us a timeline inside the Pentagon—1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010. So take a look at an overall road here on the staffing levels and what has happened so we can have in our mind the post 9/11 period, what was the impact on bloating staffs writ large. When I was at this hearing and then talking to Mike Mullen I said I would think the logical way to go about looking at all these 10 commands is do the same thing. Look at pre-9/11 and today and see what the staff levels were on all of these commands in 2000 and 2010. You can do that and then have an analytical model. Notionally— I‟m not in the Pentagon right now—but notionally you could say: All right, I want 5,000 positions out of these 10 commands in the first year as we examine all the commands, the validity of all the commands, and then we can get into these sorts of situations. So I would actually say that in my view the flip side of what you said is true. That is I think what happened with JFCOM, it was notional on their part. All right, okay, one analyst or one person with a case to make made that case and they said okay, we‟ll do JFCOM and then we‟ll kind of stumble our way through the rest of it. I don‟t think that‟s the way we ought to run the Department of Defense. Q: I want to ask you about some things under the jurisdiction of your subcommittee, and particularly I want to focus on the effort in the Pentagon to convince you that we‟re spending too much on people. The people costs are too high, particularly in terms of benefits, particularly in terms of health care. And whether you first buy the notion that we‟ve been overly generous to the troops; and secondly, as the Chairman, what is it that you‟re prepared to do? Are you prepared to be the guy that helps orchestrate a reduction in benefits or a reduction in health care costs either directly or indirectly by charging people more? Are you willing to do that? A: I think we have a very well compensated force. As you know, I grew up in the military. The numbers are not directly comparable, but when my father was a colonel with 26 years he made I think $14,000 base pay. We‟ve got a really good package. There‟s probably not a better compensation package for a young person coming out of high school or a year or two of college, particularly if they‟re married, than the package that we have. Our people work hard. I think that the package that we have is commensurate with what we‟re asking our people to do. I think one of the things we‟ve been looking at on the subcommittee in terms of cost of living above the recommended level in the Pentagon is to—or the increase in the cost of living above what the Pentagon has proposed—is to target it. I‟ve been working on a formula, talking to the Pentagon, to get a targeted bonus for those who have been doing the most difficult work in places like Afghanistan. We are in a definitional phase right now in terms of how you would define those units, but I think that‟s a good approach to take in terms of growing above the cost of living right now. With respect to medical care, we owe our people medical care and we owe our retirees medical care. That‟s one of the things my dad used to say again and again when he would talk about what his pay and allowances were. The formula—the moral contract—was that you would have medical care for the rest of your life.

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