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S. HRG. 111–868 THE CURRENT READINESS OF THE U.S. FORCES HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION APRIL 14, 2010 Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 64–544 PDF WASHINGTON : 2011 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma JACK REED, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia BILL NELSON, Florida LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska JOHN THUNE, South Dakota EVAN BAYH, Indiana ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi JIM WEBB, Virginia GEORGE S. LeMIEUX, Florida CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts MARK UDALL, Colorado RICHARD BURR, North Carolina KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina DAVID VITTER, Louisiana MARK BEGICH, Alaska SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Staff Director JOSEPH W. BOWAB, Republican Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT EVAN BAYH, Indiana, Chairman ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia RICHARD BURR, NORTH CAROLINA DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia MARK UDALL, Colorado JOHN THUNE, South Dakota ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois (II) VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB C O N T E N T S CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES THE CURRENT READINESS OF THE U.S. FORCES APRIL 14, 2010 Page Chiarelli, GEN Peter W., USA, Vice Chief of Staff ............................................... 4 Amos, Gen. James F., USMC, Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps ...... 9 Greenert, ADM Jonathan W., USN, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy ...................................................................................................................... 18 Chandler, Gen. Carrol H. USAF, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force ................. 30 (III) VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB THE CURRENT READINESS OF THE U.S. FORCES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:37 p.m. in room SD–562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Evan Bayh (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Bayh, Udall, Burris, Inhofe, Chambliss, Thune, and Burr. Committee staff member present: Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk. Majority staff members present: Peter K. Levine, general coun- sel; Jason W. Maroney, counsel; John H. Quirk V, professional staff member; and William K. Sutey, professional staff member. Minority staff members present: Adam J. Barker, professional staff member; David M. Morriss, minority counsel; and Lucian L. Niemeyer, professional staff member. Staff assistants present: Christine G. Lang and Breon N. Wells. Committee members’ assistants present: Patrick Hayes, assistant to Senator Bayh; Jennifer Barrett, assistant to Senator Udall; Roo- sevelt Barfield, assistant to Senator Burris; and Jason Van Beek, assistant to Senator Thune. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR EVAN BAYH, CHAIRMAN Senator BAYH. Good afternoon, everyone. The hearing will please come to order. The purpose of today’s hearing is to receive testimony on the cur- rent readiness of our forces with respect to deployed, deploying, and nondeployed units, and the Services’ ability to meet combatant commanders’ requirements and respond to unforeseen contin- gencies. We’re all particularly interested in your assessment of strategic risk resulting from the commitment of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other areas around the globe. We are also interested in the status of unit reset activities, how you are all managing those vital readiness accounts, your areas of concern, and the impact and expected duration of reset actions on near- and mid-term readiness. One of my concerns is that we have relied too much on supple- mental funding to resource our reset activities. In order to restore the readiness of our Armed Forces, it will be absolutely critical to (1) VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB 2 fully fund reset several years beyond our withdrawal dates from Iraq and Afghanistan. I remain concerned that the requirements for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to consume readiness as fast as we can create it. I understand that high oper- ational demand and tempo keeps the Services off balance. But, we must strive to find new ways to restore readiness. While I under- stand the enemy we face gets a vote, we must improve the way we do business, as our current strategy is not sustainable and reduces our full spectrum of capabilities today and in the long run. My biggest fear is that prolonged stress on our Armed Forces will break our Strategic Reserve. We must increase the dwell time be- tween deployments, not only for the men and women in uniform, of our All-Volunteer Force, but for their families, who are critically important, as well. In order to reduce risk to our National Military Strategy, we must continue to fully invest in our maintenance accounts to re- store readiness. We cannot afford to merely man, train, and equip units ‘‘just in time’’ for deployment. We continue to have a signifi- cant difference in readiness between deployed and nondeployed forces. Nondeploying forces, along with our National Guard and Re- serve units, continue to bear the burden of being billpayers for de- ploying units. We are very interested in hearing the Services’ goals, priorities, and investment plans for rebuilding the force, and when they expect readiness will begin to improve. When we talk about supporting the troops, operation and mainte- nance (O&M) accounts are where we must back up our talk with funding. These are the funds that train, house, and protect our Armed Forces with the food, water, ammunition, flying hours, steaming days, and tank miles that need to accomplish their mis- sion. At a time when readiness is under stress, we must do all that we can to protect these accounts from unreasonable cuts. Gentlemen, I know you have prepared statements, which will be included in the record. In the interest of time, if you would please summarize, and then we’ll have plenty of time for questions and discussions. If you could roughly keep it to about 7 minutes, give or take, with some flexibility there for things you think are particu- larly important, I think that would be a good place to begin, and then we’ll get into the questions and answers, and flesh out the statements, as need be. I want to sincerely thank all of you for your dedicated service and your sacrifice to our Nation. I also want to thank you all, for making the time to attend our hearing this afternoon. I look for- ward to your testimony. I will now turn to my friend and colleague, Senator Burr, for his opening remarks. I want to thank him for his devotion to this com- mittee and to the good citizens of the State of North Carolina. Senator BURR. Thank you. Senator BAYH. Senator Burr. STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD BURR Senator BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral and Generals, welcome. We’re delighted to have you here today. VerDate Aug 31 2005 13:53 Feb 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\64544.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB 3 I commend the chairman for calling this hearing as we continue to focus this committee’s attention on the critical issue of the readi- ness of our combat units. I also want to thank our witnesses for their dedication and for their service. I note that, despite 8 years of sustained combat oper- ations, morale remains high, recruiting remains strong, retention is excellent, and our units, more importantly, continue to accomplish their mission. These are testaments to the leadership of our panel- ists, and their service. Mr. Chairman, this is the third year of hearings on current unit readiness. During this time, we’ve achieved success in Iraq, meet- ing our goal of an orderly drawdown and transfer of security re- sponsibilities to a democratically elected government of Iraq. The drawdown in Iraq has allowed us to surge forces and resources in Afghanistan in order to establish stability in a country that, for years, served as a training ground for terrorists. By this August, we plan to reduce U.S. force levels in Iraq to 50,000. In Afghani- stan, we’re surging 30,000 troops over the same period of time. The Marine Corps has completed its withdrawal from Iraq and is now deploying roughly 8,000 of the 30,000 additional troops to support increased combat operations in Afghanistan, bringing the Corps’ troop level in there to about 19,400.